


Lost In Your Eyes

by complexQuanta



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Consensual Mind Control, Hypnotism, M/M, Mind Control, Pale Dubcon, Pale Pheromones, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Pheromones, Troll Romance, Well-meaning but sometimes poorly executed hypnosis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/complexQuanta/pseuds/complexQuanta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John, Dave, and Karkat get into relationships based on magic hypnosis (consensual) and troll pheromones (not so much). Then they act surprised when there are problems. Features slow relationship-building; a lot of confusion on John's part about his post-hypnosis sexuality; and shirtless cuddle-papping pile scenes.</p><p>It's going to be pretty funny when they figure out about the pheromones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story involves using magical mind control powers to try to change/override the sexuality of an enthusiastically consenting individual. One of the goals of the fic is to explore the problematic parts of that scenario, and it certainly won't go smoothly. But the other goal is to have hot mind control fantasy scenes and a happy or mostly-happy ending. Comments are always welcome.

“I just wish I knew what was bothering Dave. He is my friend, Karkat! He should tell me.” You turn to face Karkat, repositioning yourself in the Shitty Movie Pile. The clinking of cascading DVD cases mixes with the squelching sound of your weight settling onto the Audiovisual Mass-Media Entertainment Grubs. Karkat’s hand is warm and tight in your own. “What am I doing wrong?”

“You’re not doing anything wrong, John. It’s that asshole’s fault! He’s been acting like a freak every time you come into the room? Why the fuck would you assume that _you’re_ the one doing something wrong?”

“I just think he should tell me!” You are trying not to sound sulky. “He knows that he can tell me anything.”

“Well, what kind of bullshit story did he try to sell you about why he’s being such an idiot?”

You pause. “Welllll, that is kind of the thing…I have not actually found a chance to ask him yet. He seems so upset!”

“I take it back, John Egbert. It escapes me why I would _ever_ try to tell you that your problems were not your own idiotic fault. As barely tolerable as Strider is — platonically! — I should never have assumed that he could out-do you in a contest to be the stupidest, least communicative, poorest excuse for a human ‘friend’ who ever befriended a poor excuse for a human.”

“You’re right, Karkat!” Karkat always reminds you when you are missing something obvious. “When one of a friendleader’s valuable friend…lead-ees is upset, it’s his responsibility to — his or her responsibility, of course, but his in this case — to make friendly but firm inquiries into the situation!”

“I have hurt my eyes. By fucking rolling them. I am physically in pain, caused only by my body’s natural reactions to listening to you vomit out words you just invented to describe your terrible human relationships. Your so-called ‘friend-leadership’ should carry a warning for its risk of permanent fucking blindness.”

You’ve heard enough of Karkat’s complaints to know when he’s not being serious. Well, okay, he is probably serious about rolling his eyes so hard they hurt — but that’s his own fault. “I don’t think that our ‘human relationships’ are all that bad, Karkat. And some of us have done a pretty good job of figuring out your ‘troll relationships’, haven’t we?” You trace out slow diamond shapes with your thumb on his hand; Karkat is always a sucker for that. “You should give my human friendships more of a chance.”

“I suppose you aren’t necessarily the worst moirail who’s ever been hatched,” Karkat concedes grumpily. “Or ‘born’, or whatever disgusting human things you’re always insisting you do. But you can still go fuck yourself if you think that I’m going to trail around behind you waiting for precious crumbs of friendship to fall from the shitty human beard of your leadership position into the soup of — you know what? Fuck you anyway!”

You take a deep breath and look into Karkat’s eyes. You are really starting to get good at giving dramatic pale-romance speeches! At least, you think so, and he always seems to appreciate them. Well, he doesn’t say that, but you can tell. And even when you can’t tell, you seem to be watching a lot of pale romance movies together lately, so you’re pretty sure.

Anyway! Karkat’s eyes. Right. “You know that we could never succumb to the disease of friendship, Karkat. Because I pity you. You balance me. You complete me. I want to protect you from the world, and I need to protect the world from you. I don’t know how I could get through my problems without you; and even when all you need is someone to talk to, I’ll always be here. You’re my fate, Karkat, and I’m yours, and nothing could ever tear us apart.”

Karkat diverts his eyes, and after a moment you have to too. You hadn’t known whether this pale romance thing would work out, but it’s been crazy how fast you’ve caught on. He eventually continues, “I’ve never understood you and your friendships anyway. They’re obviously conciliatory relationships, but after you told me you were heteroconcupiscent, and I saw you and Dave, I thought maybe you were homoconciliatory, which would at least make some fucking sense, but…”

His voice returns to a comfortable yell as he begins explaining to you the inherent inferiority of human romance, human feelings, and humans. You squeeze his hand tighter in your own. 

* * *

Okay, it is totally time to talk to Dave. You can do this. You appearify in the computer lab with a brief flash, looking around to see who’s there. It’s still the asteroid’s “day”, when most of the trolls are asleep. Karkat and John’s Sleep Schedule Unification Plan has frankly been meeting with mixed success. Karkat likes to have his name first on the plans, “since you know I was the leader of three times as many fuckers as you ever had to deal with”; you’re happy to let him, but you typically insist on removing the profanity from the plan titles.

Dave is sitting at a computer in the corner, listlessly dragging the mouse around the table. He’s been making a lot of comics lately, but he hasn’t been showing them to anyone, or at least not to you. Okay, good, there isn’t anyone sitting nearby. You glance quickly at his screen, and immediately regret it. He hasn’t shown any sign that he’s seen you approaching, but you’re pretty sure he wasn’t actually watching Sultry Pale Handjobs Collection 3. It’s the title screen, anyway! And he’s been using his mouse. Trolls don’t have porn that you need to move your mouse to control, do they? Like, to make choices or something? Wait, do humans have that? You’re not sure.

Okay, not the point. You plop down in the chair next to Dave’s, trying to act casual yet leaderly. “Hey.”

Dave clicks the last window closed on his computer and stands up, looking away. “Hey, sup. I’m just on my way out of this popsicle stand, need to journey west until I hit the sunset, heading back to the master respite-a-coon suite. I’ll have to catch you later.”

Dave is kind of like a squid; when he throws out a cloud of analogies like that, you know he’s spooked. You follow him as he walks to the transportalizer. “Don’t be such an asshole. You have been avoiding me for days, and we need to talk.”

“Whatever.” The walk back to his room takes several minutes. The awkward silence is occasionally punctuated by your attempts at smalltalk, but he doesn’t seem to be very interested in hearing about Kanaya’s gardening progress. He will probably feel more comfortable talking once you’re inside his room.

You finally reach the end of the long hallway containing the human rooms. The asteroid was clearly designed for the trolls; _they_ each have a huge block of rooms with easy transportalizer access to the main lab. They even have awesome holographic zodiac signs hovering above the entrances, which they can program to decide who can enter. The humans have had to settle for finding four mostly-empty rooms close together, filling them with alchemized furniture, and painting your symbols on the doors. At least Sollux programmed the keypad locks.

Dave keys in a few numbers and walks into his room. He doesn’t hold the door open, but he doesn’t close it behind him either, so you follow him in. He walks to the center of the room and turns to face you. “Well?”

“How have you been doing lately, dude? We can tell you’ve been upset.”

Dave’s face remains as impassive as ever, but his head is turned away slightly. “Everyone’s been a little down. There’s not much to do.”

You’re pretty sure that ‘not much to do’ isn’t the problem. “We’re really working on things, Dave.”

“Look, the whole ‘doomed timeline’ thing is a bit of a downer, okay? Not much to say about it.”

Oh. That. It’s an understandable thing to be worried about, but Dave should know it’s not as bad as all that. “Rose really thinks that she and Sollux are going to be able to keep everything stable. We’re going to start rebuilding. We can’t talk outside, but we’re safe. We’ll colonize the lands and everything.”

Dave doesn’t look mollified. “Yeah, I know about the consolation prize, thanks.” He pauses. “I can’t believe you’re taking my fuck-ups this well.”

“ _Your_ fuck-ups?”

Dave’s voice is more flat and expressionless than you’ve ever heard it. “I was the one with the time powers. When Jade and Kanaya came up with their crazy last-minute session-merging plan, it was my job to make sure everyone had time to get into the veil in one piece. And our guardians didn’t.”

“That’s why I know this isn’t the alpha timeline,” you say softly. “Because I know that somewhere, your bro, and my dad, are going to make it.”

Dave hiccups once, then makes a sniffling noise. It takes a moment for you to realize he’s crying. You draw him into a hug. “None of this is your fault.”

When you touch him, he freezes completely, tensing up with a sharp intake of breath. You don’t understand, but you back away. “Dave?”

“The last thing I need is to think I can have _you_ ,” Dave says, low and quickly, his voice breaking.

“What?”

Dave takes a moment to compose himself. “Look. Everyone else has had the decency to figure this out. I’m gay for you, bro. In a gay way. And I know you’re not.”

Oh. _Oh_. That does make a lot of things make more sense. The first thing you think to ask is, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“After the first twenty times Karkat yelled about your ‘not a homosexual’ speech I think I got the message,” says Dave. “Just my luck, I’m the only gay guy in the universe. I guess that’s the fate of a Strider: too cool for company.”

“No, you won’t be alone! There’s the trolls—“

“Yeah? Name one good option.”

You run through the male trolls in your head. You think Karkat might actually have some black feelings for Dave, which wouldn’t really work out very well. Sollux is stand-offish and still doesn’t talk to the humans much; Gamzee is just weird; Equius and Eridan are right out. Tavros? You’re not quite sure what makes a guy dateable. “Well, there’s…ummm…”

“Yeah,” say Dave. “Look, I’m glad to hear more about our post-apocalypse recovery plan, but if this feelings jam goes any deeper you’ll be cheating on your brohusbandry with Karkat. I kind of had a mix I wanted to work on.”

You try to think of something helpful to say, but can’t. “Okay. You know I’m always here if you need to talk.”

Dave turns away from you to rummage through a drawer without answering, and you return to your room alone.

* * *

You’ve barely seen Dave for the three days since you talked, and you’re starting to get worried. You don’t have an answer to Dave’s problem. The trolls are intimidating, and strange. It must be pretty rough for Dave, with the trolls the only options left in the world.

But really, is your situation much better? Rose and Kanaya are already…something, and Jade is apparently your sister, and that’s it for humans. You go through the other trolls in your head. You’ve barely seen Aradia; Terezi is frightening; Feferi and Sollux have been inseparable lately. Is Nepeta still obsessed with Karkat? Karkat is certainly still complaining about it.

Which reminds you that you still don’t know how you feel about Vriska. You _like_ her. At least, you like talking with her. And she’s…nice to look at. She just seems like she would be kind of aggressive in a relationship. You don’t think you’re ready for anything that intense.

Well, you’ll have plenty of time to worry about that. You should find Dave. He has to eat, right? He can only have so many alchemized bags of Doritos in his room. You go to the food preparation block early for dinner, hoping that Dave might be there trying to beat the rush. You need to make sure that he understands that you aren’t upset or weirded out, and that you’re still going to be awesome friends. When you arrive only Jade is there, pulling out pots and pans to start dinner. “Hi Jade. Have you seen Dave around?”

Jade turns towards you a little slowly, and she seems to be trying to be delicate. “No, he hasn’t been here. So, he finally talked to you, huh?”

“What? Talked to me? What do you mean? What would Dave have to talk to me about?” You know Dave said that “everyone” knew, but it’s not your place to tell Jade. That is totally why you’re evading right now. You’re certainly not trying to avoid an awkward conversation.

Jade puts down the pan she’s holding and looks at you skeptically. “John, don’t play dumb with me. Terezi can always see straight through those SBAHJ comics, and she’s been happy to interpret.”

You frown. “He’s making comics? I haven’t seen any.”

“I was wondering why he’s only posted to the No Boys Allowed board,” says Jade.

“What? But he’s a boy!” That is totally not fair.

Jade rolls her eyes. She doesn’t seem to think it’s fair either. “He said it was ironic, and Terezi always backs him up.”

“I just don’t get why he’s been hiding in his room! He knows it doesn’t bother me! Right?”

Jade pats you reassuringly on the shoulder. “He knows, John. He’s just a little bit upset right now. But he’ll come out of this fine. He’s an awesome coolkid with sick beats and cool hypnoeyes and rad shades and awesome time powers. He’ll bounce back.”

“I think you said ‘awesome’ twice.”

“Well, he’s just that cool!”

“Wait, hypno-what?”

“Oh, yeah, he seemed kind of embarrassed by that,” says Jade. “We were in a pretty serious battle on LoFaF, and his shades got knocked off by an ogre. I was cornered by the ogre, and suddenly he starts ordering the imps around crazy-style, they all swarmed the ogre. I never did get to see his eyes. He said it was ‘just part of the Strider swag’.”

Weird. “You never found out how?”

“He was kind of defensive about it,” says Jade, “and then, well, I guess we were busy.”

Oh. Right. You’re still not exactly sure what happened on LoFaF, but things were apparently pretty rough. “I just feel bad for Dave. He doesn’t have anyone here. And I still don’t really get how he can like me. I mean come on, guys are gross!”

“John!! That doesn’t even make sense! People like being attracted to people. If you liked guys, they wouldn’t be gross at all.”

“Heh, maybe. I guess it’s just hard to imagine.”

“Are you expecting girls to like you? Why is it different for them?”

“Girls are weird,” you say matter-of-factly. “That’s just a given.” You’re a little bit disappointed that Jade didn’t find that obvious. “Do you need any help with dinner?”

* * *

Dave isn’t at dinner, either. You’re mostly quiet, thinking about what Jade said, and about Dave. Karkat seems to pick up that something’s wrong, and responds by becoming even louder and more talkative. That’s starting to become a familiar pattern, and you find it relaxing to float along in the sea of words, occasionally contributing a “Yeah!” or a “Wow, Karkat!”.

By the end of dinner, you have an idea. It’s weird, and a little screwy, but it really could fix everyone’s problems at once. It’s your turn to clear the table, and you ask Rose if she can stay behind for a few minutes to talk.

You start collecting a pile of dishes as people wander off, but once everyone except you and Rose is gone, you put the pile back down on the table. You’re bracing for an awkward conversation. “Rose, this is kind of a weird question, but…would it be wrong to change someone’s sexuality? If you could?”

Rose stops with a collection of utensils in her hands, tilting her head to the side to think. “The ethics of being able to change someone’s sexuality would be quite complicated, and I readily admit that I would need to give the matter quite a bit of thought before I could speak confidently about it. But the analysis has frankly never needed to focus on the ethics of a successful transformation. Sexuality ‘re-education’ does not work. The data on that are quite clear. And without efficacy, those so-called ‘therapies’ are certainly unethical.

“On a more personal note, John, I’m touched that you’ve chosen to speak with me about this. I can see that it is clearly bothering you. As your friend, I want you to know: ethical discussions aside, if I could wave my magic wands and make you straight, and if that was what you wanted—“

“I’m not gay, Rose! How many times do I have to tell you that?!” You’re pretty sure she’s just trying to piss you off at this point.

“Forgive me.” Rose yields easily, instantly. “I was clearly mistaken to infer from your question.” She resumes collecting forks. You think she’s making a point of seeming casual.

You look back at your pile of dishes but don’t pick it up yet. “I’m worried about Dave.”

“Ah,” says Rose, suddenly quieter. “Yes, he has never admitted his sexuality to me, at least not in sincerity, but I agree with your assessment. His repeated homophilic imagery does seem calculated to mask his genuine feelings. But in many ways, the situation here is not so bleak for him, John. With ectobiological methods available, I doubt that he will need to produce offspring in the traditional method, and the trolls seem to largely be bisexual. He may have a larger pool of potential mates available here than he would have in many Earth communities.”

You stare at your feet. “I don’t know if he’s going to find anyone in the trolls, Rose.”

“I have actually been speculating on the possibility of a black, or ‘caliginous’, relationship between Dave and E—“

“No! I don’t need to hear that! I can’t hear anything you say about that, or anything else terrible!”

Rose doesn’t look surprised by your outburst, but she at least has the basic decency to not take obvious pleasure in it. “If you change your mind, I have some notes prepared on the subject.”

You smile a bit, almost rising to the bait, but then sigh. “He likes me.”

“Ah. Yes. I was aware.”

Of course she was. “Apparently I’m the only one who wasn’t.”

“John, your concern for Dave is touching,” says Rose, “and the situation he’s in isn’t easy. But hoping that he can change who he is isn’t the answer.”

“What? No! I wasn’t going to change Dave. That would be super rude and terrible of me. I’m not a total asshole, Rose!”

“Of course not,” says Rose, but her eyes narrow suspiciously. “I’m sure your interest was purely academic.”

Abort, abort! “That’s me! Always interested! Well, I’m pretty sure I have to go make sure Casey hasn’t gotten into any trouble! Thanks, Rose!”

You leave before Rose can respond, the dishes forgotten.

* * *

This is simple. There’s a simple, easy solution that will make everything work out. You love Dave, right? As a friend, obviously, but wouldn’t things be easier for everyone if it weren’t? And with all the crazy stuff you can all do, is that too much to ask?

You’re pretty sure that you’re a genius.

You burst through the door to Dave’s room. “Dave! I think I’ve figured it out!”

Dave looks up from his mixing board. You think his annoyance is at least 80% pretend. “Was it knocking you figured out? Because I think you’re still missing a step.”

“Oh, uh, sorry. I can go back outside and try again if you want.”

“No, you’re already in the fortress of solitude, no point worrying about whether Alfred is still guarding the door,” says Dave.

“You really don’t know anything about comics either, do you?”

Dave turns off the mixing board and swivels his chair to face you. “So what is it you figured out, bro? I can only assume this was worth interrupting some pretty sweet beatsmithing for. And I mean seriously sweet. This Knight of Time shit is off the hook. That’s the first thing they should tell you at the beginning of DJing for Assholes 101: get some magic time powers. It’ll help.”

“Okay, Dave, I’m sure your mixing is very important.”

“Oh shit, bro, I forgot, Breath is kind of a chump power, isn’t it? Don’t feel bad that you’ll never turn that into a super art gig.”

“Breath is the coolest power, you have no idea.” You don’t rise several inches into the air to emphasize this, which is solid proof of how mature you are. “Even if you’re somehow not counting being amazing at flying, which you should, because it’s totally an art and you’re just jealous, I could totally revolutionize, like, ballet.”

Dave is completely deadpan. “Ballet.”

“That was just an example! I mean, I’ve never done ballet, but if I wanted to I could kick your ass at it.”

“Hey, you brought it up. If my innocent gay self can’t get the image out of my head, I’m hardly the one to blame.”

You push the door behind you all the way closed, making sure it’s secure. This is going to be embarrassing enough as it is. “See, that’s good, that’s one thing I wanted to say! I’m really glad you’re kidding around about that. Mostly kidding. I’m going to assume you’re kidding. Anyway I wanted to make sure you knew I was okay with—“

“Dude,” he interrupts, “I’m not dumb. I know we’re still friends. I just need a couple days to get my shit together. Plenty of fish in the troll sea, bro. I think I’ve earned some time to mope in here listening to emo rock and smearing my eyeliner before I go back out there angling for fresh meat. Things aren’t changing, and I’ll deal with that.”

“But what if things _could_ change?” You do something that’s supposed to be suggestive with your eyebrow but you don’t think it’s working.

Dave pauses, swallowing. He doesn’t look at your eyebrow. “Dude, I can tell you’re not in to me. Don’t … don’t get weird about it.”

“But that’s my idea,” you say patiently. “I could _be_ in to you. Jade said you had some sort of hypno-eyes power without your shades on. You could use it on me.”

“Whoa, what? Jade said what? No,” says Dave, “no way in hell, no. I’m not that kind of guy. I’m not taking advantage of someone like that. And ‘hypno-eyes’ sounds stupid, am I a Pokemon, and I don’t have those anyway, Jade was lying, that’s a stupid idea. End of story.” Sometimes it amazes you that he worries his face or his tone of voice is going to give away his emotions, when it’s so easy to read him from his words.

“If you don’t have weird eye powers, then how come I’ve never seen you without your shades?” You are pretty sure you have won the argument with this.

Dave’s hand twitches briefly towards his shades, then he wrinkles his nose oddly, as if he’s reassuring himself of their weight. “The shades are there to keep the bitches away. Walking through the halls is dangerous without these babies. Occupational safety is everyone’s business, man.” Dave is facing your eyes directly, holding the shades between you like a shield.

You forge ahead. “Something Jade said gave me the idea. I mean, liking guys seems pretty weird to me, now. And kind of gross. But you like being attracted to me, right?”

“Oh yeah,” says Dave, “why wouldn’t I? Crushing on my best bro who’s straight. I’d recommend it to anyone. 5/5, would pine again.”

“But, like, the actual feelings. Like, if you, okay, I’m not asking about this, but like if you … think about things. By yourself.” You are trying not to go into any detail on this. “You like that, right? Like, when I’m thinking about … if I think about someone I like, it’s nice. You know? I wouldn’t be happier not liking them. Jade said that people like being attracted to people.”

“I guess.”

“So what I wanted to ask is, could you use your eye beams to make me like you too?”

Dave’s fingers tap nervously at his chair. You haven’t seen him do that before, but you’ve also never seen him look directly at you for anywhere near this long. He’s trying to keep the shades between you, and obviously his cool is leaking out through his fingers. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I’d feel like the world’s biggest creeper.”

“So you could?”

“Hell, I don’t know! My denizen wasn’t handing out a manual on molesting your best friend with your new freaky eye powers.”

“Ha, your denizen! I knew it couldn’t just be your ‘Strider Swag’.”

“You got me. The magic hypno-eyes aren’t natural. Good catch. I’m still not using you as some kind of sex guinea pig.”

“But what’s the harm in trying?” you ask. “I mean, I’d like it, right? If I like it then it’d solve everything, and if I don’t like it we’ll stop. I trust you. And besides, you’re not the only one with magic game powers. If anything happens I’m sure Rose and Terezi could sort me out.”

“Oh yeah. That’s something I want to explain. ‘I accidentally turned John into a crazy sex slave, no biggie, right? Hey TZ, what’s that noose for?’”

You grimace. “Dave, don’t be gross. I’m not asking you to turn me into, umm, that. I just want to be able to like you the way you like me. I want things to work out.”

Dave finally turns away, cradling his head in his hands in a way that blocks you from any possible view of his eyes. “Damn, Egbert. Damn. God fucking damn. This isn’t fair. You can’t just ask me to do that to you.”

You want to step forward, but you worry it would be too much, so you don’t. “What if I started it? What if I’m the one who takes off your shades? Then it’d be up to me. You wouldn’t be doing anything to me. I’d be doing it.”

Dave is silent for almost a minute. You wait. “And if you don’t like it,” he says, “you tell me, any time, and we get that shit fixed?”

You grin. “Deal. I promise.” You step forward and put your hand forward for a manly business handshake.

Dave shakes your hand a little too quickly. “Okay. Yeah.”

Might as well get this show on the road, right? You smile nervously and reach for Dave’s glasses.

“What, now?” squeaks Dave, jumping back out of his chair. “I mean, yeah, of course now, why wouldn’t you want to get with the Strider now, heh. You just caught me by surprise. Really took the Prankster’s Gambit on that exchange.”

“Yes, Dave,” you say, rolling your eyes, “it was quite the prank when I did exactly what I told you I was going to do. Look, this is kind of weird for both of us, and I don’t know if I want to spend any more time thinking about it. I want to try it!” You’re nervous about this, but you’re also convinced that you’ve found a clever solution to everyone’s problems. And to be honest you’re starting to get pretty curious about what it’s going to be like.

“Okay, sure, we can do that. All aboard the Strider-macking express, full speed ahead. So, you might end up pretty out of it, so we should be sitting.” He looks around his room and seems to notice that he has only ever alchemized one chair. He pulls up the sheets on his half-made bed and sits down at the head of the bed. “I guess this is when I finally get Egbert into bed, huh?”

“And you’d better appreciate it,” you say, grinning and trying not to seem nervous. You sit down facing Dave. “Ready?”

“You’d better not drop the shades,” says Dave. “Keep your eyes closed until you put them down or something.”

“Okay, Dave, I think I can figure out not the drop the shades that I got you in the first place. Is that everything?”

“Ready when you are.”

You reach slowly forward, taking Dave’s shades gingerly in your hands. You squeeze your eyes tightly closed, then pull the shades off of Dave’s face. You hear a sharp, nervous intake of breath from Dave, then a return to measured breathing, almost too regular. You carefully fold the shades and put them off to the side.

What is it going to be like when you open your eyes? The moment stretches, feeling rich and important. You listen to Dave breathe. You’ve never been more aware of how close someone is. You can smell his scent faintly around you.

“I want to like the way you smell,” you say quickly.

“What,” says Dave flatly. “I don’t smell.”

“Everyone smells like something. We’re on your bed, and it smells like you, and it isn’t bad! You’re my friend and it’s nice. But it’s not sexy nice, it’s just friend nice. It should be sexy nice.”

“Okay, sure. Smell. Anything else?”

Enough putting this off, huh?

“I trust you,” you say, and open your eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave does his best not to say anything weird, but may eventually discover that he should have stopped talking earlier.
> 
> (Illustration commissioned from roachpatrol).

The first thing you know is that you're safe.

Everything is red and wonderful and right. He'll take care of you. You can trust him completely, more than you've ever been able to trust anyone or anything before. He's here to tell you exactly what is true. You don't have to worry about anything, or make any decisions, or figure anything out. You can just yield, just trust, just be. Just fall into his eyes.

You're safe, and you listen.

DAVE: ok so  
DAVE: you like me  
DAVE: like me like me  
DAVE: ...  
DAVE: youre attracted to me  
DAVE: ...  
DAVE: but were gonna start slow okay  
DAVE: you wanna kiss me  
DAVE: and make out  
DAVE: and maybe cuddle (oh god what am i saying)  
DAVE: and well worry about the rest later  
DAVE: if you want to  
DAVE: and probably you wanna do your romantic shit with me  
DAVE: like watch sappy movies  
DAVE: and hold hands  
DAVE: and candle-lit dinners   
DAVE: and flowers and all that shit  
DAVE: that im gonna complain about but you wont listen  
DAVE: not that ive thought too much about this  
DAVE: okay im getting distracted here  
DAVE: point is were gonna try going out  
DAVE: and itll be cool  
DAVE: and well go however fast youre comfortable  
DAVE: and if you dont like stuff youll always tell me  
DAVE: you wont do anything you dont like  
DAVE: and  
DAVE: you like looking at me  
DAVE: you like my face  
DAVE: and my rockin bod  
DAVE: cant resist the strider  
DAVE: thats just how it is  
DAVE: you want to touch me  
DAVE: you like my voice  
DAVE: my voice is damn sexy  
DAVE: like damn  
DAVE: like you could listen to me talk all day  
DAVE: just smooth and strong and manly  
DAVE: and i guess you like how i smell  
DAVE: but not in a creepy way  
DAVE: just like its nice  
DAVE: sexy nice not just friend nice  
DAVE: i guess  
DAVE: and listen  
DAVE: you dont have to act any different otherwise  
DAVE: like dont get all weird about it  
DAVE: none of this is a big deal at all  
DAVE: this doesnt mean youre gay now or whatever  
DAVE: or you have to think of yourself any different  
DAVE: or any big personal drama  
DAVE: this is just me and you  
DAVE: and something were gonna try  
DAVE: no big deal  
DAVE: itll be great  
DAVE: ...  
DAVE: ...  
DAVE: okay so i guess were done here  
DAVE: so imma put my shades back on  
DAVE: and then youll wake up and be back to normal  
DAVE: except for all that stuff i just said  
DAVE: thats all still different  
DAVE: okay here goes


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow, Dave is amazing! But maybe we didn't plan this very well....

You blink and rub your eyes, feeling like you've woken from a particularly weird and dream-filled nap. You remember what Dave said, and it was all so reasonable, so perfect and wonderful and _true_. Dave was saying the most obvious things in the world.

This is going to be great. You really are a genius. You smile, look up at Dave, and --

Okay, wow.

The room is centered around Dave, in a way you've never experienced before. It's not a room that has Dave in it, or even Dave-and-his-room. It's Dave. Everything else is an irrelevant background; only important because it's the answer to "Where am I in the same place as Dave?"

Dave is sitting up against his pillows, weight leaning forward on one arm. He looks like he tried to position himself to look casual, but his lips are in a tiny, vulnerable frown, and he barely seems to be breathing. He always tries to seem so unaffected, but you know better.

Your vision is caught by Dave's hair as he sweeps it back with his free hand from behind his hastily-put-on-sunglasses. You blush suddenly and look down. No, that's not better, now you're staring at his arm. It's just that with his weight on it like that you can really see the muscles in his forearm and there are these adorable little blond hairs that you can barely see except when they catch the light.

"Are you okay?" Dave asks finally.

His voice is amazing but oh wait it's not really any different but it _feels_ different, why have you never really listened to it before? You want to listen to it forever. And it's definitely a tone of voice you've never heard from him, husky and concerned and intimate.

"Did you know you have arm hair?" You squeeze your eyes shut in horror and try to recover. "I just, I just, didn't know that. About you." You hear yourself start laughing. "Oh god, Dave, you made me stupid."

"That's what it's like," says Dave. "You make me stupid for you every day."

You blush fiercely and look up at Dave. You feel full of emotions you don't know how to describe. Does Dave really care about you that much? Does Dave feel as strongly as you do now? You look at his face, and wish you could read his eyes.

You both look at each other for a long moment. You realize that this is the moment that you could kiss Dave. You really, really could. It would be sweet and wonderful and, sure, it seems like a big step, but it's someone you care about, and Dave seems so worried about you, and he looks so nice; but are you ready? It's awfully sudden, and even if you _could_ kiss him now, shouldn't you be dating first? _Are_ you dating?

You didn't actually plan this far, did you?

Well, not planning kind of _was_ the plan, right? Kissing Dave, when you had dutifully explored the idea, had seemed gross before. (Why? You remember the feelings, but they seem so distant). Of necessity, the plan had been 1) become attracted to Dave 2) make further plans. You didn't really make a kissing schedule. You didn't think everything would be this sudden! Holy shit, okay, so, what should you do?

Dave looks down to the side and chuckles, slumping back against the pillows. "Hey, bro, you can't just let a cheesy line like that slide."

You laugh a little too much and look down too. You feel both relieved and disappointed. "Yeah, Dave, that was terrible. You're going to have to do better than that if you want to win my heart." You're pretty sure that you're both going to play this casually, at least for now. That's good. Nothing's really different, right? Nothing important. You have a few more options to try, and those are very interesting options, but it's still you and Dave. You're going to be awesome bros forever no matter what happens.

"You say that, but I've already got you in my bed." Dave is obviously making his voice sound fake-sleezy, but okay, wow. If fake-sleezy sounded that good, you kind of want to hear real-sleezy. Dave stays leaning back, telegraphing that he isn't actually going to try anything uncouth.

"Oh geez, wow, I am!" Sitting in Dave's bed feels _very_ different than it had. You're sitting on Dave's sheets (!), with Dave (!!), hearing Dave's voice and smelling Dave's scent around you (!!!), and wow, it's intimate and overwhelming and maybe some things _are_ different. What Dave's bed means is different. You leap up from the bed in a panic and embarrassment that is mostly but not entirely fake, and end up hovering three feet in the air past the foot of Dave's bed.

Forget Dave if he thinks that flying isn't the coolest power ever.

"Oldest story in the world," says Dave. "Boy meets boy, boy gets boy into bed, boy finds that boy has flown away in the morning."

"Yes, Dave, I'm sure that all of your b-boyfriends...um...I mean...Davearewegoingout?" Casual, John, you were supposed to be playing this casual!

Dave looks suddenly serious. "Shit, I knew I was forgetting something. Here, let me get down on one knee."

"What? Dave, no, that's marriages! You can't ask someone out on one knee!"

"We're making our own rules here on this meteor, and if I want to get down on one knee so that I can ask you out, then damn it that's my right."

You look down at Dave, who's on one knee on the floor. Without a ring to offer, he's clasped both of his hands together, as if in prayer. He looks kind of ridiculous, particularly since he's several feet underneath where you're hovering, and you can mostly only see the top of his head. But Dave has always been willing to be ridiculous for you, hasn't he? Before, you might have said that he was "willing to do anything for a joke", or at best that he was "devoted to his friends"; but in his own weird way, he really is a hopeless romantic.

"Jonathan Egbert--"

"That's not my name, David."

"Jonathan Tiberius Egbert, will you go out with me?"

You look down at him, and you can't think of a joke. "Yes", you say, floating down to the floor.

Dave stands up to meet you, smiling broadly. The smile does funny things to your stomach. Why doesn't he ever smile? "Baller," he says.

"Baller, Dave? I'm going to go out with you and that's baller?"

"It is hella baller, John, you don't even know."

"You know we're going to have to plan dates," you say.

"I'm counting on it. Though I'm not looking forward to the quadrant-sharing lecture from Karkat. Is he drawing up schedules yet?"

Heh, yeah, Karkat was probably going to be --

Karkat was --

"Karkat," you say, stupidly.

Dave tenses up instantly, then tries to pretend he hadn't. "When you talked with him about this. This idea of yours. This idea you talked with your space boyfriend about, because of how it affects him."

"Um, Dave?"

"Don't do this to me, John. I'm not falling for it. You ask Karkat if it's a good idea before you alchemize a new brand of breakfast cereal."

shitshitshit. "I, um, I think I should probably go and--"

"Go." Dave waves a hand dismissively. His fingers are long and graceful, and he moves with a confidence that -- not the point right now!

"Thanks, Dave. Sorry! See you at breakfast!" You open the door and half-fly into the hall, getting your PDA from your sylladex as you go.

You are an idiot.

 

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] \--

EB: okay  
EB: so  
EB: karkat  
CG: OH GOD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE THIS TIME?  
EB: well, um  
EB: okay, you remember when i alchemized the edible chocolate recuperacoon, right?  
EB: because i thought it'd be pale-sexy  
CG: I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW YOU SWAPPED IT OUT WITHOUT ME NOTICING  
EB: hehehe  
CG: GET TO THE POINT  
EB: well, you were really really angry at first  
EB: but eventually you stopped and you smiled and you said that i just get caught up when i have an idea  
EB: and i don't always stop to ask you for advice  
EB: and maybe i go too far  
EB: but that that was one of the things you loved about me  
EB: you remember that, right?  
CG: JOHN, YOU CAN'T DISTRACT ME BY RECOUNTING SAPPY THINGS THAT CLEARLY INDICATE I HAD INGESTED FAR MORE SOPOR SLIME THAN EITHER OF US REALIZED.  
CG: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY RESPITE BLOCK?  
EB: no, nothing! i didn't do anything to your block, karkat.  
EB: i just  
EB: well, i appreciate how you've always understood when i'm  
EB: when i should have talked to you about something and maybe i didn't because i get carried away  
CG: JOHN  
CG: YOU NEED TO STOP FUCKING AROUND  
CG: AND TELL ME WHAT YOU'RE BABBLING ABOUT  
CG: YOU'RE WORRYING ME  
EB: you're going to be angry  
CG: OKAY, SEE, THAT'S SOMETHING  
CG: NICE OF YOU TO FINALLY DROP SUCH A CONCRETE PIECE OF IMPORTANT INFORMATION  
CG: I WAS THINKING, MY MOIRAIL IS OBVIOUSLY UPSET BY SOMETHING HE'S DONE  
CG: AND IT'S APPARENTLY SOMETHING THAT AFFECTS ME IN A WAY HE'S AFRAID TO TELL ME ABOUT  
CG: SO WHICH NEGATIVE EMOTION SHOULD I BE SEEDING MY THINK PAN FOR?  
CG: HATE? JEALOUSY? GUILT? FEAR?  
CG: BUT NOW I KNOW  
CG: MY FUTURE IS SET  
CG: I  
CG: AM GOING  
CG: TO BE ANGRY  
CG: IT'S ALMOST LIKE I'M STARTING TO FEEL IT ALREADY  
CG: ...  
CG: HEY  
CG: YOU'RE BEING QUIET  
EB: sorry  
CG: DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS MORE  
CG: PRIVATELY  
EB: yeah this would probably be easier in a pile  
CG: YOU DON'T JUST HAVE TO SAY IT LIKE THAT!  
EB: <>  
CG: MEET ME IN MY BLOCK  
CG: WHICH HAD BETTER BE THE WAY I LEFT IT!  
CG: <>

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling ectoBiologist [EB] \--

 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] \--

TG: hey rose  
TG: youll tell me if i turn evil right  
TT: Is that an eventuality I should be preparing myself for?  
TG: no everythings fine  
TG: im just saying  
TG: like if i start to do something really bad to someone we care about  
TG: like jade or karkat or someone  
TG: youll warn me  
TT: I am beginning to become worried, with a rapidly-developing option on anger.  
TT: Tell me what you've done to John.  
TG: what hey no  
TG: we didnt do anything  
TG: i mean okay anything we did he was the one to ask for  
TG: if theoretically we did anything which we didnt  
TG: i mean youd know anyway with your seer voodoo right  
TT: Dave, I have worked ten-to-twelve hour days for the past nine days, using my "seer voodoo" to help Sollux and Aradia determine how to keep a doomed timeline intact.  
TT: In addition to, apparently, being responsible for John's share of the dishes.  
TT: You have spent this period making comics, dropping 'ill rhymes', and having complicated interpersonal relationships, which lately have seemed to involve dangerous escalations in some sort of gay conversion chicken with John.  
TT: Because, and I quote, "it's not the right time" for you to help yet.  
TG: too many cooks spoil the universe  
TT: I have tolerated this unequal division of labor because, to my frustration, my voodoo agrees.  
TT: You will have an important role to play, but your help at this stage would be disastrous.  
TT: But the only thing that my voodoo has deigned to tell me about your personal relationships  
TT: Is that they are entirely irrelevant to the continued existence of the universe.  
TG: see now that hurts rose  
TG: you understand why that hurts right  
TT: Yes, perspective is quite the bitch.  
TT: But this is a digression.  
TT: You were about to explain how John, who both of us know perfectly well is not and could never be attracted to you, became depressed about your romantic prospects.  
TT: And how, trying to convince himself that he could be gay, he threw himself at you.  
TG: no no no thats not what happened  
TT: Did you have sex with John, Dave?  
TG: jesus fuck NO rose!  
TG: fucking listen okay  
TG: this shit is terrible and embarrassing and youre probably going to be angry but its not that bad jesus  
TG: not nearly that bad  
TG: i think  
TT: I'm waiting.  
TG: so i kind of maybe hypnotized him into liking me  
TG: like me liking me  
TG: romantically  
TT: Yes, I understood the implication the first time.  
TT: Was he the one who initiated this?  
TG: yeah whole thing was his idea  
TT: That at least makes his after-dinner conversation explicable.  
TG: what after dinner conversation  
TT: And what did you do then?  
TG: Then we made googly eyes at each other for a minute all doki-doki until he realized oh shit i left the karkat on  
TG: and ran off  
TG: because for some reason he didnt think to maybe run the whole thing past karkat first  
TT: He talks with Karkat before he alchemizes a new type of breakfast cereal.  
TG: i know right  
TG: anyway thats all that happened  
TT: Well, Dave, I hadn't realized you were interested in hypnosis, and I'd be happy to discuss the science of psychology with you at another time.  
TT: Preferably after I'm done fixing the entire universe.  
TT: But hypnosis is hardly magical. It can't force anyone to do anything they truly aren't comfortable with.  
TT: As I would have hoped you would know.  
TT: Particularly considering your apparent lack of knowledge on the subject, I trust that whatever 'changes' you've made will be short-lived and superficial.  
TT: I don't think that fixating on John is a particularly good decision for your long-term happiness, but if you're doing this with his consent, and allowing him to take the lead, I don't see any harm.  
TT: Perhaps he desires to explore his own feelings, trying to reconcile the homosocial and homoerotic.  
TT: I would be lying if I said I wasn't interested in hearing about the results.  
TG: okay so i didnt really know that about hypnosis  
TG: but not really the point here  
TG: cause when you say hypnosis is hardly magical  
TG: thats kinda the thing thats not really true here  
TG: i mean lets face it  
TG: this game hands out crazy powers like nobodys business  
TT: Dave, you're a Knight of Time.  
TT: Are you seriously telling me that you have a fraymotif for erotic hypnosis?  
TG: im seriously telling you hephaestus has a sick sense of humor  
TG: and the whole ironic curse for failing a quest is stupid  
TG: dudes a blacksmith  
TG: he makes swords  
TG: he fixes swords  
TG: so does he give out quests about swords  
TG: no  
TG: why would he  
TG: he gives out quests about some kinda heavyhanded personal growth shit  
TG: like somebody made him the god of afterschool specials  
TT: I didn't spend much time with my denizen's quests.  
TT: What was it like?  
TG: okay so i was in some dank ass generic dungeon  
TG: with the three of you  
TT: Jade, John, and I were there?  
TG: obviously thats who i mean  
TG: i mean i knew it wasnt really you  
TG: but at the same time it was  
TT: We were symbolic of our real selves?  
TG: sure  
TG: so i said it was a generic dungeon but really it was kinda blacksmith themed i guess  
TG: smelled like charcoal  
TG: big metal doors  
TG: lava everywhere  
TG: and this hammering the whole time  
TG: it kept getting louder  
TG: bang bang bang bang  
TG: couldnt hear each other at all  
TG: and the dungeon is set up with all these sadistic tricks to make us need to communicate and trust each other  
TG: timed switches  
TG: enemies sneaking up behind people  
TG: runes only one person can read  
TG: everything you can think of  
TG: first room john starts making those fbi hand moves from the movies and shit  
TG: like you go here  
TG: you go there  
TG: ill be over here  
TG: theres two guys over there  
TG: rose if john ever starts doing that  
TG: he does not actually know what those mean okay  
TT: I'll keep that in mind.  
TG: jade knew finger spelling or something but no one else did  
TG: so we end up doing most of this shit on like gestures and facial expressions  
TG: bang bang bang the whole time  
TG: i tried taking the lead  
TG: figured hey its my quest  
TG: you guys would figure it out  
TG: and you guys kept looking at me  
TG: like are you an idiot  
TG: why dont you take off your god damn shades  
TG: and i was just like no thats stupid  
TG: i resent this obvious moralization  
TG: i dont have to make a big show about how much i trust my friends  
TG: they know  
TG: i dont need some stupid game to help me grow as a person  
TT: I assume all three of us died?  
TG: yeah  
TT: How inspirational.  
TT: And this was when you were cursed to hypnotize John? I've lost the thread of the narrative here.  
TG: so after you three fall in the lava theres nothing left in the dungeon  
TG: no more monsters no treasure  
TG: no locks no lava  
TG: i just walk out  
TG: dungeon leads right into the forge  
TG: hammering stops  
TG: hephaestus is fuckin angry  
TG: like personally angry not like game angry  
TG: like i disappointed his kitten or something  
TG: and hes all like  
TG: I Curse You  
TT: Really? "I Curse You"?  
TG: no shit he really started with that  
TG: I Curse You  
TG: and then he started going on about how i didnt know how to open up to people and i was just trying to push my own view of myself onto others  
TG: and said from now on id never be able to be able to open myself up without overpowering people  
TG: or something like that  
TG: and my eyes start fucking burning like most painful thing that happened the entire fucking game  
TG: and boom  
TG: magic hypnoeyes  
TG: cant ever take my shades off  
TT: Magic Hypno-eyes?  
TG: okay i dont know if theyre really magic or just like game stuff  
TG: did we ever figure out if those were the same thing  
TT: I'm not sure that the question is entirely well-defined.  
TG: okay well point is  
TG: thats what john called them cause i guess thats what jade called them  
TG: she saw me fighting some imps with them btw  
TT: So you received an ironic curse from a powerful supernatural entity, tailored to emphasize your weaknesses as a person, and perhaps even to encourage you to think about how to address those weaknesses,  
TT: And now you are using that curse to seduce your best friend.  
TG: well sure if you put it like that it sounds bad  
TG: remind me how youre doing on your quests rose  
TG: finding out a lot about yourself  
TT: If I had known they were giving out sex toys as consolation prizes, perhaps I would have found the time.  
TG: arggg didnt need to hear that  
TT: I'll find time to talk with John, to make sure he's all right.  
TG: pretty sure hes with karkat for tonight  
TT: Yes, I'm sorry, you had mentioned that. That really does simplify matters.  
TT: If you and Karkat both live through the night, then you can't have hurt John that badly.  
TT: Regardless, I'll talk to John tomorrow morning.  
TG: youre just dying to pry into this arent you  
TT: I admit to being fascinated.  
TT: And Dave? Rest assured.  
TT: If I find out that you've 'turned evil' and are hurting John,  
TT: Warning you is the last thing I'll do.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

TG: okay that didnt even make sense  
TG: shouldnt you say its the last thing ill do  
TG: and if youre killing me why would you warn me  
TG: whatever

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] \-- 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat makes a federal fucking issue out of something that really isn't a big deal.
> 
> Wherein the reader discovers that Dave _may_ have done too much editorializing about how casual, unimportant, and not a big deal the whole thing is.

Okay, this shouldn’t be so bad.

Karkat is going to be upset. You didn’t tell him ahead of time, and hey, you feel really dumb about that. But what you and Dave are trying is not going to be a big deal! Karkat will understand that.

Except, well, obviously it’s going to be a big deal, you’re _going out with a guy_. Not that that makes you gay or anything, it’s just a thing you and Dave are trying, right? It’s not going to be a big deal, and okay, your thoughts are going in circles a bit. Really the whole thing is a little confusing, but it’s going to be great.

It’s just that Karkat is such a romantic, so it’s probably going to seem like a big deal to him. Not that you’re not a romantic, love is a huge thing, it’s one of the most important things! It’s just that the thing with Dave isn’t anything to worry about. It’s going to be awesome. You just have to figure out how to explain it right. Karkat is probably going to be all weird about it.

It really does feel like you should have talked to Karkat first, even if you can’t figure out exactly why. You’re probably just worried about how he’ll take you “filling another quadrant”. Hee, you’re like a pokemon master or something, gotta catch ‘em all! Karkat will probably be jealous. Karkat is always adorable when he’s jealous.

You stop in your room to change on the way to Karkat’s. You usually wear a tank top and sweatshorts to Karkat’s for piling. It’s like a slumber party, really. Apparently Karkat likes your arms? Which seemed pretty weird at first. All of this seemed like it would be too weird, but when you and Karkat tried it, it wasn’t weird or sexual at all. It was just ... incredibly intense.

It’s been a really busy two weeks, hasn’t it? Karkat. And now Dave. If someone had told you two weeks ago how you’d feel now, you wouldn’t have believed them. If they’d told you what you’d be _doing_ now, you wouldn’t have believed them, and you don’t know if you would have been exactly happy about it. But a lot of things have happened to all of you, so it’s not surprising that a lot of things have changed, right? Okay, so maybe you don’t understand your feelings sometimes, but you’re pretty sure that’s what being a teenager is about! The secret is to keep your momentum up and not stop to worry about the little things.

The thing you and Dave are trying isn’t such a big deal, anyway.

You consider grabbing a blanket, but you’re pretty sure you’ve already left like three of your blankets in his room. Karkat is like an adorable little furnace, so if it’s a side-by-side pile he’s all you need, but you’re expecting what you think of as a “sleepover pile”: an sort of upside-down “v” that you and Karkat lie on the opposite sides of and talk. You can’t see or feel Karkat on those piles, you can only hear his voice. You chose the name because they share the intimate anything-goes feeling of the best after-dark sleepover conversations; the other person doesn’t seem quite real.

Karkat builds sleepover piles when you have something very serious to talk about; but he also builds them if you don’t have anything in particular to talk about at all, and just want to get lost in fanciful philosophical bullshit and telling each other about your childhoods. You’ve never done the “planning to be angry” thing, but you’re surprised when you transportalize into Karkat’s room and find that instead of a moderately-sized sleepover pile, everything he owns seems to have been thrown into a sea of possessions on the floor. There are two main mounds, with barely enough space between them for you both to sit.

Karkat is wearing black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt, as always. He’s really self-conscious about his body. Sometimes he stresses out because he feels like by always wearing so much he isn’t trusting you enough. It wouldn’t bother you, except that it so obviously bothers him. Lately he hasn’t been wearing socks, so that’s progress, right?

Troll feet are pretty cool.

Karkat gestures quickly for you to sit in front of him. “Hey, Karkat,” you say, a bit nervous that this is going differently than you’d expected. He grunts. He’s probably afraid that if he starts talking before you’re both in the pile he won’t stop. You pick your way across the floor with difficulty and sit down cross-legged in front of him. Your legs brush against his sweatpants as you sit down. (At least the sweatpants are really soft).

With the close quarters, your knees are still touching once you’re both settled. Karkat rests his hands on your legs just above the knees. His hands are warm and comforting on your legs. Troll skin is thicker than human, and the skin on his hands always has a particularly strange texture, almost slick or oily. Really his hands feel a lot like what you’d imagine from a hot and slightly oily tire, complete with sickle calluses for road grit, but you haven’t quite gotten around to explaining the comparison to him.

It’s always amazing how warm Karkat is. Warmth seems to radiate from him straight into you, particularly from his hands on your legs. It spreads through your body like you’re wearing a big heavy comforter and you won’t need to get out of bed for hours. You’re safe, and you can trust Karkat with anything.

Man, this must be why people like heating pads so much.

There’s a sharpness to Karkat’s scent that you don’t quite recognize. You’ve started to be able to tell when he’s feeling particularly pale for you by the way he smells, which is certainly not something you were expecting. But hey, aliens, right? You haven’t asked him about it, because you aren’t sure if it’s something you’re supposed to be able to detect. From a human perspective it almost seems intrusive, to be able to read his emotions like that.

And this pile _is_ different. You’re surrounded on all sides by heaped possessions, in a setting that feels both intimate and somehow confrontational. If you had to name it, you’d call this an “arena pile”. You place your own hands on Karkat’s sweatpants. His hands feel almost possessive on your legs. You tighten your grip and lock eyes with him. It feels like it would be hard to look away.

“John, I know you’re new to this moirallegiance thing, so let me tell you how this is supposed to go. You’re going to tell me whatever terrible fucking thing you’ve done to shove your foot so far up your own ass it’s coming out of your mouth. I’m going to be angry, maybe you’re going to be angry back, we’ll be angry together. There’s going to be yelling, maybe there’s going to be some crying, but we’re going to deal with whatever this shit is, and we’re going to deal with it now. It will be dealt with, completely and totally, before we leave this pile. And then we can move on. No holding back, no leaving things out, and none of your pauses to try to figure out how to say something so it doesn’t make me angry. Today is a day for angry, but it’s a day for angry together.”

Okay. This sounds good, right? This sounds healthy. You can totally do this. “Okay, you know Dave, right?”

“No, John, I have completely forgotten — did you have a jam with Strider? Is that what this is about?” Karkat squeezes his eyes shut momentarily in exasperation. “John, we’ve talked about this. I know that your relationships with the other humans are something that would traditionally be construed as pale in troll culture, and that’s something I’m ready—”

“No, Karkat,” you interrupt, “It wasn’t pale.” This already feels like it’s going downhill. With difficulty you keep your eyes locked on Karkat’s.

His eyes widen. “You fucked Strider.”

“NO! Oh my god, no! He, that is, I mean, maybe someday, but not for a long time, and we’re, I mean, we’re taking it slow, and, well, Karkat, I’m going out with Dave, and I wanted OW OW OW your claws! You’re digging your claws into my legs!”

You both look down at his hands, and after a moment he manages to relax them. “Well if your damn skin wasn’t so thin! Look, it’s not even bleeding! Why the fuck did you say yes to Strider’s stupid infatuation? I thought you didn’t like guys! Have I misunderstood yet another one of the stupid subtleties you humans have insisted on adding to what, for any species capable of reproducing, should be the simplest quadrant? Is he your anti-sister, causing some sort of idiotic reverse incest taboo? Help me out here, John!”

“No, I don’t like guys, I just....” You trail off, blushing. Why is this so hard to say? “I just like him.”

Karkat waits, his hands stopped. You feel like something inside you is being pulled out to fill the silence.

“I was thinking,” you hear yourself say, “about how he didn’t really have any romantic prospects — flushed romance, I mean — and, well, I wasn’t sure if I really had any either.”

“I’m not saying that we’re not down to the dregs of troll society here, John, and your human monosexuality wasn’t a fucking help. But is that how it works? You don’t like guys until you do? You pitied him so hard you got over your strange human taboos? If it wasn’t Strider that would be romantic.”

“Well, no. I mean, sometimes humans do try doing things with people they’re not...monosexual towards...for stupid social reasons—let’s not get into that, it’s kind of a big conversation.” You’ve both been glossing over some of the more unpleasant bits of your respective societies, which is yet another thing you’ll need to talk about someday. “It does not really work and it makes people really unhappy. So, you know, you just don’t fall for someone you’re not going to be able to be attracted to. We just, well, with the game, and everything, we found a way around it.” You grin hesitantly. “So I think things are going to work out now, for both of us, and if we don’t like it we’ll stop, but I feel really stupid and terrible for not talking to you about it beforehand. I had an idea, and I got caught up in it, and I am really sorry.”

Karkat is oddly quiet; his eyes seem to search your face for understanding. “You found a way around it?” Suddenly he grins crookedly (you’re surrounded by people who need to smile more often). “Oh god, is Strider a girl now? Tell me you found a machine in the basement that turned Strider into a girl! He’s so obsessed with his precious human masculinity, it would be hilarious!”

You laugh honestly. “That would have been pretty hilarious. I’m always on the lookout for lab machines that would make good pranks. But no, we didn’t change Dave.”

“You didn’t change _Dave_?” Karkat’s eyes run over your body quickly, looking for differences. He always takes these things so seriously. “What did he do to you? John, what did you let Strider do to you?”

Okay, if you can just explain this right, Karkat will see it isn’t a big deal after all. “It was all my idea! It turns out he has some sort of hypnotism power when he takes his shades off, and I asked him to make me like him. The way he likes me. He’s been a total gentleman about everything, and I think it’s really going to make things easier. It’s just something we’re trying out; if I don’t like it, we’ll stop. But you’re my moirail, and I should have talked with you first.”

Karkat seems to freeze, his breathing stopping. When he starts talking again, he’s quieter than you think he’s ever heard him. “He used mind control powers on you, and now you think you’re his matesprit?”

You gulp. “Karkat, I asked him to, it’s not like that. It’s really not a big deal.”

“You remember asking him to? That’s why this is okay, because after he used his mind control powers on you, it turns out that you have a clear fucking memory that the whole thing was _your idea_?”

“I, um, I wasn’t thinking of it like that. But it’s not like that, Karkat! I trust Dave!”

“John,” says Karkat sadly. He looks at you like you’re a precious vase that Karkat’s one duty in the world had been to protect, and that he had left alone, and that someone had smashed; it could never be truly fixed, but if Karkat were infinitely careful and gentle he could perhaps glue the pieces together, and restore some fraction of its beauty. It hurts you to see him so gentle. His hands are limp.

“John,” says Karkat again. He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. Anger slowly returns to his face, and you don’t know whether to feel relieved or afraid. “John, nothing that I have ever asked you has been as serious as this. If you have any pity in your bloodpusher for me at all, please. Let me take care of this. Fuck, I can’t leave you here, fuck, okay, maybe Kanaya can watch you.”

“Karkat, there’s nothing to take care of—“

“Then let me find that out!” Karkat leans forward aggressively. “Let me talk to Strider and figure out what the hell is going on with this. I’m your moirail, and the most important thing I need to do is keep you safe.”

“No! Do you think I haven’t paid any attention to you at all? The most important thing we do is keep the world safe, from each other! And I am not going to let you go kill Dave just because you don’t trust him!”

“Well I’m sure as hell not taking you with me!”

“Why not?” asked John.

Karkat looked sick. “Because I can’t trust you!”

Oh.

He looks like he wants to say more but is forcing himself not to. His claws tense up occasionally and then loosen as he forgets and remembers himself. You’re pretty sure your knees are bleeding by now, but it doesn’t seem important. Your own fists are starting to hurt; at some point you clenched them around bunched-up parts of Karkat’s sweatpants in a way that had to be uncomfortable for him.

The room starts to blur a little with tears. You hang on to eye contact with Karkat, feeling like you would fall if you didn’t. You are being supported entirely by his hands on your legs and his eyes meeting yours. You don’t understand why you are so upset.

“Okay,” you say in a small voice. “I guess I see what you mean. I mean, that makes sense. You should check on that. But I don’t think you two should be alone right now? Karkat, I don’t want you hurting him.”

“I’ll take Terezi with me,” says Karkat grudgingly. “She can do her Seer of Mind thing, and tell me what really happened.”

“Try not to kill him, Karkat? I really did ask him for this.”

“If this is something you asked for, I won’t kill him.”

You both look at each other. You think that you are probably going to spend some time hugging before he goes off to confront anyone, but his hands tense on your legs again, and Karkat pushes himself up to standing. Karkat begins pacing around the room immediately, picking at his troll PDA and mumbling. “I can do this, we can do this, we’ll work this out. Just stay there a minute while we work this out. While I work this out.”

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] \--

CG: I DON'T PRETEND TO UNDERSTAND YOUR HUMAN FAMILIAL STRUCTURES.  
CG: SO IN CASE THIS IS SOMETHING I'M SOMEHOW OBLIGATED TO INFORM YOU OF AHEAD OF TIME, OR IN CASE THIS MAKES US ENEMIES LATER,  
CG: I MAY KILL YOUR BROTHER.  
CG: BUT ONLY BECAUSE HE HURT JOHN.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] \--

You sigh and slump back into the pile. You're starting to feel a little more collected. This isn't so bad, right? Karkat's going to talk with Dave, and then he'll see that there isn't anything wrong. Terezi likes Dave, and she won't let Karkat kill him, you're pretty sure.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] \--

CG: KANAYA  
CG: I NEED YOU TO WATCH JOHN FOR ME  
GA: Karkat I Am Not Entirely Certain Why You Feel This Solicitation Is Appropriate  
GA: I Certainly Admit That I Find You Each Frustrating  
GA: In Your Own Way  
GA: But Taken Together You Are Actually More Tolerable Than Apart  
GA: To Put It Bluntly I Do Not Hate You And John  
GA: And While I Understand That You Had Black Feelings For John At One Time It Seems Obvious That The Two Of You Are More Suited To Moirallegiance Than Auspisticism  
CG: WHAT? NO, THIS ISN'T AN ASHEN SOLICITATION, GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE FIREPLACE.  
CG: I AM ENGAGING THE SERVICE OF A TRUSTED ALLY TO PROTECT MY MOIRAIL WHILE I GO TO ENACT VENGEANCE ON HIS BEHALF.  
CG: IT IS A ROMANTIC TROPE SO OVERUSED AS TO BE A PALE CLICHE.  
GA: Vengeance On His Behalf  
CG: I HAVE TO CONFRONT STRIDER BECAUSE HE USED HIS FUCKING EYE BEAMS TO SEDUCE MY MOIRAIL INTO THINKING HE'S HIS MATESPRIT.  
GA: I Was Not Aware That Dave Could Emit Seductive Eye Radiation  
GA: Though I Suppose It Explains His Otherwise Questionable Choices In Eyewear  
CG: WELL THIS IS THE FIRST I'VE HEARD OF IT EITHER!  
CG: AS ONE OF THE LEADERS OF WHATEVER SORRY COLONY WE'RE WORKING ON FOUNDING, I EXPECT TO BE APPRAISED OF THE RESOURCES AT MY DISPOSAL.  
CG: AND THAT INCLUDES WHATEVER SHITFUCK INSANE MAGICAL SEX POWERS YOU WERE ALL APPARENTLY GRANTED BY YOUR DENIZENS!  
CG: OR ANY OTHER SCANDALOUS MAGICAL HIJINKS PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HIDING FROM ME OUT OF A SENSE OF DECORUM I HAD HITHERTO ASSUMED WAS PURELY VESTIGIAL  
GA: I See  
GA: I'm Afraid My Denizen Did Not See Fit To Grant Me Any Powers That I Would Describe As Scandalous Magical Hijinks  
GA: Much Less As Shitfuck Insane Magical Sex Powers  
GA: But Perhaps We Have Merely Been Insufficiently Creative In Their Application  
CG: JEGUS FUCK, I DON'T NEED TO HEAR ABOUT WHAT YOU AND LALONDE HAVE BEEN DOING  
GA: In Truth Rose Has Been Very Busy  
GA: And What We Have Been Doing Is Mostly Sleeping  
GA: Though I Did Assist Her With Some Dishes Earlier  
GA: Would It Make You Feel Any Better If I Were To Formally Inform You In Your Position As Our Leader That I Am A Rainbow Drinker  
CG: NO, KANAYA. WE ALL KNOW THAT.  
CG: OKAY, ACTUALLY, COME TO THINK OF IT, I DO WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THAT, AND WHAT YOUR POWERS ACTUALLY ARE, AND WHAT EXACTLY YOU'VE BEEN EATING FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS.  
CG: THAT'S ALL VITAL INFORMATION THAT I WILL NEED AS YOUR LEADER.  
CG: BUT IT WILL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW.  
CG: TONIGHT, THE POINT IS THAT I DON'T KNOW WHAT STRIDER HAS DONE TO MY MOIRAIL.  
CG: I'M NOT LETTING JOHN ANYWHERE NEAR HIM, AND I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE JOHN ALONE.  
GA: Is It Wise For You To Confront Dave By Yourself  
GA: Are You Not Concerned About Your Own Vulnerability To Ocular Seduction  
CG: LOOK, I'M NOT SAYING THAT JOHN ISN'T A STRONG PERSON, IN HIS WAY.  
CG: BUT LET'S FACE IT, HE'S A HOPELESS ROMANTIC ABOUT HIS FRIENDS.  
CG: IT DOESN'T SURPRISE ME THAT HE WAS VULNERABLE TO THIS.  
GA: Yes I Suppose If John Was Vulnerable Because He Was A Hopeless Romantic  
GA: Then That Does Make It Clear Whether You Should Be The One To Confront Dave  
CG: OKAY, FIRST POINT, FUCK YOU!  
CG: I AM NOT A ROMANTIC, I AM A ROMANCE EXPERT!  
CG: THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE.  
CG: WHICH I AM TOO BUSY BEING EXPERTLY CONCERNED ABOUT MY MOIRAIL TO EXPLAIN RIGHT NOW.  
CG: SECOND POINT, DAVE STRIDER COULDN'T SEDUCE ME IF HE HAD MAGICAL SEDUCTION BEAMS SPEWING FROM EVERY ONE OF HIS DISGUSTING HUMAN ORIFICES.  
CG: BECAUSE AS SOON AS I TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE SMUG EXPRESSION ON HIS PURSED LIPS I WOULD BEGIN VOMITING HARD ENOUGH TO PURGE MY SYSTEM OF ANY TRACE OF AFFECTION I MIGHT HAVE TEMPORARILY FELT.  
GA: It Sounds Like Perhaps Your Feelings For Him May Lie In A Different Direction  
CG: SECOND POINT SUBPOINT A, FUCK YOU ABOUT THAT TOO!  
GA: That Seems Remarkably Similar To The First Point  
CG: THIRD POINT, I'M NOT GOING ALONE, BECAUSE I'M NOT FUCKING STUPID.  
CG: I'M GOING TO GET TEREZI.  
CG: FROM WHAT JOHN SAID I DON'T THINK STRIDER'S POWERS WILL WORK ON HER.  
CG: IF I CAN EVEN TRUST WHAT JOHN SAID.  
CG: I HATE THIS.  
CG: I DON'T KNOW WHETHER MY MOIRAIL IS LYING TO ME, KANAYA.  
GA: It Sounds As Though If He Is Deceiving You  
GA: It Is Only Possible Because He Is Being Deceived Himself  
GA: It Is Obvious That John Pities You A Great Deal  
CG: I GUESS.  
GA: Are You Certain That Pursuing Terezi's Assistance Is Wise  
GA: It Has Often Seemed That She And Dave Are Themselves In Cahoots  
CG: TEREZI'S INEXPLICABLE AND NAUSEATING TOLERANCE FOR STRIDER ASIDE, IF HE'S DONE ANYTHING LIKE WHAT I THINK HE HAS, SHE'LL BE ON MY SIDE.  
GA: On The Side Of Justice  
CG: YES, ON THE SIDE OF FUCKING JUSTICE.  
GA: You Know Her Better Than I  
GA: Where Are You And John Now  
CG: WE'RE IN MY BLOCK. LOOK, IT'S KIND OF...WELL, WE WERE TALKING, AND...THINGS ARE STILL A BIT DISORGANIZED HERE.  
GA: Karkat There Is Nothing Inherently Scandalous About A Heap Of Objects On The Floor  
CG: OBVIOUSLY THERE'S NOTHING SCANDALOUS ABOUT MY BLOCK, IT'S JUST A MESS AND NOT VERY DEFENSIBLE AND YOU SHOULD WATCH JOHN SOMEWHERE ELSE.  
GA: Very Well  
GA: Bring John To My Block  
GA: I Will Be There Shortly  
CG: WHY, WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] \--

You’re feeling much calmer, and even starting to get bored. The thing with Dave isn’t going to be a big deal. You pick through the pile idly, looking at what Karkat had used. “Dude, is this everything I’ve ever loaned you? I’ve been looking for this blanket.”

Karkat grunts, still thoroughly engrossed in typing, so you don’t see any reason not to get out your PDA.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] \--

EB: hey rose?  
EB: you'd've told me if dave had turned evil, right?  
EB: oh man, you're probably going to be kinda angry about this too.  
EB: karkat's really pissed.  
EB: but i mean, i kind of understand why?  
EB: i should have talked with him about this first.  
EB: i'm dumb, rose.  
EB: i guess you're asleep, huh?  
EB: well, you can yell at me tomorrow, i guess.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] \--

You’re pretty sure Karkat is overthinking all of this and being a huge worrywart, but you care about him a lot, so you’re going to humor it. Alien romance is very trying sometimes.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC] \--

CG: TEREZI, I NEED YOUR HELP.  
GC: *TH3 F4MOUS L3G1SL4C3R4TOR STOPS 1N M1DSP33CH 4S TH3 MYST3R1OUS STR4NG3R BURSTS THROUGH TH3 COURTBLOCK DOORS*  
GC: *W1TH TH3 TR14L 1NT3RRUPT3D TH3 COURTBLOCK TURNS 4S ON3 TROLL TOW4RDS TH3 STR4NG3R*  
GC: YOU H4V3 MY 4TT3NT1ON!  
CG: THIS IS SERIOUS!  
GC: Y3S, 1NT3RRUPT1NG TH3 COURT 1N S3SS1ON 1S ON3 OF TH3 MOST S3R1OUS OF C4P1T4L OFF3NS3S!  
CG: OKAY, I HATE MYSELF FOR DOING THIS, BUT IF I PHRASE THINGS IN YOUR STUPID ROLEPLAYING SCENARIO, WILL YOU PROMISE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS ACTUALLY SERIOUS?  
GC: TH3 COURT PROM1S3S NOTH1NG!!!  
GC: BUT 1S 4LW4YS D34DLY S3R1OUS  
GC: PROC33D  
CG: OKAY, THIS IS STUPID, BUT  
CG: THE HANDSOME STRANGER AND AMAZING LEADER AND ALL-AROUND GREAT GUY FOR GETTING SHIT DONE, ESPECIALLY AT TIMES LIKE NOW, WHEN SHIT IS REALLY IMPORTANT AND REALLY NEEDS TO GET DONE, EVEN WHEN THAT MEANS STUPID ROLEPLAYING, DECLARES THAT DAVE STRIDER IS A CRIMINAL!  
CG: AND THE STRANGER NEEDS YOUR HELP   
CG: BRINGING HIM TO JUSTICE OR SOMETHING.  
GC: T3LL TH3 COURT TH3 CH4RG3S!  
CG: LOOK, DO WE HAVE TO DO THIS?  
CG: MY MOIRAIL IS SUFFERING, AND I NEED YOUR HELP.  
GC: G1V3N TH3S3 3XT3NU4T1NG C1RCUMST4NC3S, TH3 COURT W1LL 4LLOW 4 S1MPL3 R3COUNT1NG OF TH3 F4CTS  
CG: DAVE STRIDER USED SOME KIND OF MAGICAL EYE BEAMS TO SEDUCE MY MOIRAIL INTO BEING HIS MATESPRIT.  
GC: (( OK4Y, K4RK4T, WH4T TH3 H3LL? YOU C4NT 4BUS3 MY OUT-OF-CH4R4CT3R SYMP4TH13S BY 1MPLY1NG TH4T R34L-L1F3 JOHN 1S 1N R34L-L1F3 D4NG3R JUST SO W3 C4N PL4Y SOM3 STUP1D K1NKY SC3N4R1O *YOU* W4NT TO PL4Y 1NST34D OF MY TOT4LLY 4W3SOM3 COURTBLOCK SC3N4R1O ))  
CG: THIS ISN'T A FUCKING ROLEPLAYING SCENARIO! REAL-LIFE JOHN IS IN REAL-LIFE DANGER BECAUSE HE WAS REAL-LIFE SEDUCED BY REAL-LIFE STRIDER'S REAL-LIFE MAGICAL SEDUCTION EYE BEAMS!  
CG: FUCK MY REAL-LIFE SELF THAT THAT WAS A REAL-LIFE SENTENCE I HAD TO SAY TO DESCRIBE MY REAL-LIFE LIFE!  
GC: OH. HUH. R34LLY?  
CG: REALLY!  
GC: TH3N TH3 L3G1SL4C3R4TOR W1LL T4K3 TH3 C4S3!  
GC: H4S TH3 V1CT1M B33N S3CUR3D?  
CG: I'M GOING TO TAKE HIM TO KANAYA'S ROOM, SHE'S GOING TO WATCH HIM.  
GC: TH3 NOBL3 R41NBOW DR1NK3R 1S KNOWN TO TH3 COURT 4S 4 C4P4BL3 PROT3CTOR 4ND 1S 4CC3PT4BL3  
GC: P3R ST4ND4RD PROC3DUR3 W3 W1LL B3G1N BY 4GGR3SS1V3LY CONFRONT1NG TH3 SUSP3CT 4ND D3M4ND1NG H3 CONF3SS H1S CR1M3S!  
GC: 1F FURTH3R 1NV3ST1G4T1ON 1S N3C3SS4RY 4T TH4T PO1NT W3 M4Y 1NT3RV13W TH3 V1CT1M OR LOOK FOR POT3NT14L W1TN3SS3S  
GC: 4S YOU 4R3 TH3 V1CT1MS MO1R41L 1 W1LL 4LLOW YOU TO P4RT1C1P4T3 1N TH3 4GGR3SS1V3 CONFRONT4T1ON  
GC: M33T M3 1N TH3 H4LL OUTS1D3 D4V3S ROOM 4S SOON 4S YOU DROP OFF JOHN  
CG: ARE YOU SURE THAT'S WISE?  
CG: I HAVEN'T GOTTEN MUCH FROM JOHN YET ABOUT WHAT STRIDER ACTUALLY DID, AND IF HE'S GONE EVIL, WE SHOULD BE PREPARED.  
CG: AND I GUESS I KIND OF WANTED YOU TO LOOK AT JOHN  
CG: AND TELL ME IF HE'S OKAY.  
GC: 1NT3RROG4T1NG TH3 V1CT1M F1RST 1S H1GHLY UNUSU4L, BUT 1N TH1S C4S3, TH3 STR4NG3R M4K3S 4 GOOD PO1NT  
GC: TH3 V1CT1MS W3LL B31NG 1S 4MONG TH3 H1GH3ST OF 1NV3ST1G4T1V3 PR1OR1T13S  
GC: 4S 1S PROT3CT1NG TH3 1NV3ST1G4T1V3 T34M 1TS3LF FROM TH3 SUSP3CT  
GC: 1LL M33T YOU 1N K4N4Y4S BLOCK TH3N  
CG: ALL RIGHT.  
CG: TEREZI?  
CG: THANKS.  
GC: YOU C4N TH4NK...  
GC: JUST1C3!  
GC: 4ND JUST1C3 S4YS TH4T YOU 4R3 W3LCOM3

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] \--

Karkat is still looking really frowny and serious. You trust him; you trust both of them! But maybe you should let Dave know just so it won’t be a surprise.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

EB: dave?  
TG: sup bro  
EB: dave, no, we don't have time for whatever adorable rap you're starting to type  
TG: my raps are adorable  
EB: adorable like a train wreck!  
EB: adorabloodspattered maybe.  
EB: look, there's a lot of stuff i want to say right now, and it's really exciting to talk to you, and this is really great!  
EB: and i'm kinda disappointed to be spending our first official boyfriend pester on serious stuff,  
EB: but dude, karkat is really mad.  
TG: thats not news john  
TG: karkats always mad  
TG: its kinda his thing  
TG: karkat not angry is like white before labor day its just not done  
EB: after labor day.  
TG: what  
EB: no, i think he's REALLY mad, dave.  
TG: like how mad are we talking here  
TG: like lets say a 1 is damn it gamzee why do you always leave your pie tins in the linen closet what are you even doing in there  
EB: he doesn't believe me that it was my idea.  
EB: he thinks, um, that you made me remember that.  
TG: fuck  
EB: yeah.  
EB: i don't think i'm supposed to be talking to you right now.  
EB: i trust you, dave.  
EB: i know you wouldn't do something like that.  
EB: hell, my friends wouldn't let something like that happen to me.  
EB: if my memories of you were fake, my memories of rose and jade and karkat and everyone would have to be fake too.  
EB: and by that point, i'd rather just live in the fantasy world than lose all of you.  
TG: john you are one sappy fuck  
TG: <3  
EB: <3  
EB: i just wanted to warn you to be careful.  
TG: i can take him  
EB: dave strider if you kill my moirail i will never forgive you!  
TG: relax john chill chill chill  
TG: take a chill pill  
TG: im not going to kill karkat  
EB: and don't use your eyes either!  
EB: changing his mind is my prerogative. :p  
TG: you really care about him a lot dont you  
EB: god i'm stupid for him too, it's so weird.  
EB: it's one of the most important things i've ever done, and i know it's helping me, and honestly making me a better person.  
EB: but sometimes i look at what i'm doing, and it's like wow, two weeks ago this would have seemed really fucked up.  
EB: and, well, kinda gay almost?  
EB: not that there's anything wrong with that!  
TG: what exactly have you two been doing  
EB: not, like, anything weird!  
EB: just, you know, talking a lot, and hugging,  
EB: and i guess hand-holding, and cuddling,  
EB: but like, bro-cuddles.  
TG: bro cuddles  
EB: he's really warm!  
EB: i guess bro-cuddles aren't really a thing, are they?  
TG: dude are you sure youre straight  
EB: yes!   
EB: except for you kinda.  
EB: i dunno, i just really like him a lot.  
EB: do you think karkat has magic eye beams too?  
TG: probably  
TG: but okay straight up honesty time  
TG: you do seem calmer lately  
TG: and maybe a little more confident  
TG: like i mean you were always confident  
TG: but sometimes youre trying pretty hard  
TG: and its like its coming a little easier now  
TG: and lets be honest you two are fuckin adorable together  
TG: so as much shit as i may give you about him  
TG: im not gonna do anything to get in the way of that  
EB: oh shit i think he noticed i'm online.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

When you look up, Karkat has finished typing on his PDA and walked back. He does not look amused. Damn. You really thought you had gotten the pile between him and the PDA. He probably saw your typing motions.

You try to seem casual. “Hey Karkat! Did you get things worked out?”

Karkat doesn’t smile back. “Don’t ‘Hey Karkat’ me. You’re talking to Strider.”

“I really don’t think it’s as bad as you think it is, Karkat.”

“Give me your computers.”

You blink. “What?”

“I don’t want you talking with him until I know what’s going on. I need you to trust me.”

“Look,” you say, “I was thinking about it, and I know I can trust Dave, because I trust all of you guys! You guys wouldn’t let anything that bad happen to me!”

Karkat just glares at you. “So you’re saying,” he says slowly, “that I shouldn’t try to stop this, because if it were bad, I would be trying to stop it? Is there any part of that which makes sense in any universe?”

Yeah, okay, from Karkat’s perspective that was kind of dumb. “I guess not, huh? It really made more sense when I was talking to Dave.”

Karkat looks like he can’t decide whether to be sadder or angrier and has to settle on both. You wish he weren’t so upset about this. “I’m sure it did,” he says. “Computers, now.”

You still don’t think this is nearly as important as Karkat is making it. Sure, he has some good points, and he makes sense, but he’s really blowing the whole thing out of proportion! But you can tell he’s very upset, and it doesn’t look like things are going to settle down until he’s talked with Dave himself. You dutifully hand all of your computers up to Karkat, even your old compuglasses that he might not remember you have. You do trust him. “Okay, but if you’re going to nanny me about this, I don’t want to hear you complaining later when I say you’re eating your troll popcorn too fast and you’re going to choke yourself.”

“Yes, John, we can make a deal about our ENTIRELY EQUIVALENT over-reactions. I’ll eat my grubcorn slower if you don’t get mind-controlled by a selfish douchebag in shades. Look, let’s get you to Kanaya’s, okay?”

Karkat reaches his hand down and you pull yourself up. His hand is blazing warm, and you remember why you don’t need to be worried. You’re there to keep Karkat from doing anything dangerous. You know he won’t hurt anyone while you’re around. You cling to each other’s hands on the way to Kanaya’s block.

“Did I ever tell you I gave him those shades?” you ask on the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Arathe for her constant encouragement and support, and for beta'ing this chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Karkat arrive at a place of safety; we begin to see things from Dave's perspective; and we are reminded that John is kind of an asshole.
> 
> Featuring complications of romantic entanglements real, potential, artificial and entirely imaginary; and further misunderstanding caused by Dave's hypnotic emphasis that none of this is a big deal anyway.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] \--

TG: hey so uh  
TG: it sounds like youre angry  
TG: more than usual  
TG: so did you want to maybe talk about that  
CG: NO.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] blocked turntechGodhead [TG] \--

 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

TG: he wont talk to me  
TG: what happened  
TG: john  
TG: okay guess hes not letting you answer  
TG: talk about creepy power plays  
TG: okay maybe lets not talk about creepy power plays huh  
TG: man in glass house shouldnt hypnotize stones  
TG: if karkat kills me rose gets all my stuff  
TG: thatll burn her good

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

TG: but like seriously  
TG: if anything ever happens you have dibs

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

 

You and Karkat find Kanaya's transportalizer unlocked (open? unsecured? activated? whatever). The transportalizer places you in something that's been decorated as a sort of sitting room; Kanaya is sitting in a troll version of a rather nice armchair, reading a novel which she sets aside when you arrive. "You both took your time in getting here," she says, "Is everything all right?"

Karkat steps in front of you, a flattering mixture of protective and aggressive, dragging you forward by your hand. "Obviously everything is not all right! My moirail's brain is even more of a flaming pile of hoofbeast crap than usual!" He squeezes your hand as if he is wringing calmness from a sponge. "But yeah, we haven't actually had any _new_ disasters. I just had to talk to Terezi." It always works. You're Karkat's calmness sponge.

Kanaya's eyes trail to your hands, and Karkat looks down, seeming to realize that you're still holding hands for the first time. He quickly drops it and tries to look dignified.

"Of course." Kanaya gestures to a sofa. "John, take a seat. I'm told that you've been seduced recently?"

Jesus, really? "It's not that big a deal! Dave and I are just trying something with some game powers it turns out he has. Karkat's just being a mother hen, sorry, mother cluckbeast who absolutely has to talk to Dave to make sure he's not going to hurt me." You put up a hand to do an exaggerated stage whisper to Kanaya, but make sure that Karkat can still hear you. "I'm pretty sure Karkat has black feelings for Dave, but don't tell anyone!"

Karkat flips you a double bird. Sometimes you wish Dave hadn't taught him that. "Yes, you figured it out. Protecting my moirail from fucked up predators obviously means that I have black feelings!"

"It's really not as bad as Karkat thinks," you say, trying yet again.

Kanaya looks between the two of you carefully. "Well, I'm certain that I'm not qualified to comment about what would be healthy or usual for a human relationship."

There's an awkward silence after that. Karkat eventually stops watching the transportalizer for Terezi and wanders over next to where you are sitting on the sofa. You take one of his hands and rub it slowly between both of yours, marveling again at the warm, slick feel of his skin. "Karkat, please don't do anything violent tonight."

Karkat doesn't look at you, but you can see a little bit of the tenseness go out of his body. He grunts noncommittally, leaning fractionally towards you. Eventually he says "I don't know why you always think everything is rainbows and happy land. But as much of an asshole as Strider is, it's probably not as bad as -- I probably won't have to kill him. If he cooperates."

Kanaya clears her throat. "If the two of you could refrain from breaking into a feelings jam in my antechamber, it would be much appreciated."

Karkat glares at her. "It's not like you have to stay in here."

"As it is my block," says Kanaya, "I rather feel that I do."

You try to change the subject. "So where do you think Terezi is?"

"Who knows," says Karkat, "maybe she decided she had to finish whatever brain-dead roleplaying she was doing with Nepeta or whoever she convinced this time."

The next awkward silence lasts just long enough that when the transportalizer finally buzzes with Terezi's arrival, it's not particularly dramatic or impressive.

 

* * *

 

Holy shit. You're going out with John.

It took a while for it to seem real. The last few weeks haven't been high on the plausibility scale anyway, but today is the first time your brain has just kicked up its heels and decided it's on vacation. But now that you've had some time to yourself you're starting to believe it, and you're starting to have a sinking feeling that just maybe you might have made a mistake?

Or maybe it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to you. It could really work! A happy ending with cars and a fence and 2.5 kids and a dog that he names something stupid like "Karkat" and okay, you're not sure if there even are any dogs any more, that's pretty depressing, but--

But it's never going to work. This is impossible. He's going to realize it won't work. You don't just get magical sex eyes and boom, your best friend's into you. That's stupid. It's a stupid scenario and you're stupid for believing it.

He looked at you, and it was like you'd always wanted. You could have him. You had given up. There hadn't been a human left in the entire universe who could possibly love you. But now _he_ could. It's like motherfucking Christmas up in here. You're getting something you've never expected.

You're getting something you've never deserved. You are slime. You are abusing someone who trusts you. Someone who only wanted to help you! Karkat is going to kill you. He is literally going to kill you to death and you will deserve it. Terezi and Rose will slowly, painfully try to fix whatever damage you've done to John. Rose won't ever cry about it, but occasionally she will stare off into the distance and look disappointed.

You could get married someday. You've never really thought about getting married, that's the way society was going but it wasn't quite real, but now you could. Would you want to? He'd want to. You'd want to, for him. Rose could be your best man. Or maybe Terezi? Do you and John both get best men? How does that even work?

You are _not_ wearing a dress.

He could wear a dress.

You could make him _want_ to wear a dress.

Holy shit no, you're trash! You're enjoying this! You're already planning how you're going to fuck him over for your own enjoyment, aren't you? You're from a fucked-up, broken home and you're broken and now you're going to break him too.

Okay, look. Maybe you're not what Rose would call the most emotionally self-aware knife in the drawer, but you're smart enough to tell when you're going in circles. You need to chill. You need to distract yourself. You know just who to talk to.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] \--

TG: hey terezi  
TG: lets talk about your stuff for a while  
TG: you doing any roleplaying  
TG: im pretty sure awkwete purrmusk is hankerin for a dragon spankerin if you know what i mean  
TG: which i hope you dont lets pretend i didnt say that  
TG: but you know if you want to do some rp that isnt crazy sex stuff i can see if i can find time  
TG: hell we can do the crazy sex stuff im hip im good to go i can take it  
TG: sex me dragon lady im waiting  
GC: OH D4V3!  
GC: 1 H4V3 B33N W41T1NG FOR TH1S D4Y!  
GC: TH3 D4Y WH3N YOU F1N4LLY 4CKNOWL3DG3 YOUR D33PLY H1DD3N D3S1R3 FOR TH3 S3CR3T P4SS1ONS B3TW33N DR4GONS 4ND   
GC: D1D YOU 3V3R D3C1D3 WH4T SP3C13S 4KW3T3 4CTU4LLY W4S?  
TG: some sorta cat thing  
GC: YOU DONT H4V3 4NYTH1NG MOR3 SP3C1F1C TH4N TH4T?  
TG: nah hes an oc  
GC: 1 DONT TH1NK TH4TS WH4T TH4T M34NS  
GC: R3G4RDL3SS, 1 H4V3 B33N W41T1NG FOR YOU TO F1N4LLY 4CKNOWL3DG3 YOUR D3S1R3 FOR ROM4NC3 B3TW33N DR4GONS 4ND SOM3 SORT4 C4T TH1NG!  
GC: 1 4M P4RT1CUL4RLY 3XC1T3D 4BOUT HOW OBV1OUSLY S1NC3R3 TH1S D3S1R3 1S, 4ND HOW 1T 1S CL34RLY NOT 4N 4TT3MPT TO D1STR4CT M3 FROM 4NYTH1NG  
TG: hey would i do that  
GC: OBV1OUSLY YOU WOULD DO TH4T. BUT NO, 1T SOUNDS MOR3 L1K3 YOUR3 NOT TRY1NG TO D1STR4CT M3 4T 4LL  
TG: yeah like i said  
GC: HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW 4BOUT DR4GONS, D4V3?  
TG: i know all about dragons  
TG: theyre big and dragony  
GC: W3LL S1NC3 YOU 4LR34DY KNOW 4LL 4BOUT DR4GONS 1 WONT H4V3 TO T3LL YOU 4NYTH1NG  
GC: 1V3 D3C1D3D TO ST4RT PL4Y1NG 4 N3W CH4R4CT3R TOD4Y! H1S N4M3 1S DR34MG4Z3 4ND H3 1S TH3 MOST WOND3RFUL DR4GON 1M4G1N4BL3. WOULD YOU L1K3 M3 TO T3LL YOU 4BOUT H1M?  
TG: nah lets just get started ill figure it out  
TG: so youre playing a guy huh  
GC: 1 4M V3RY S3NS1T1V3 TO YOUR HUM4N ROM4NT1C PR3F3R3NC3S!  
GC: 1 WOULD NOT W4NT TO 1NSULT YOUR HOMOS3XU4L CULTUR3 BY 4SSUM1NG TH4T 4KW3T3 WOULD PURSU3 4 F3M4L3 DR4GON  
TG: yeah our homosexual culture is all about man cat on man dragon  
TG: thats always what we call ourselves btw  
TG: our homosexual culture  
TG: dot tumblr dot com  
TG: anyway sure youre a guy dragon thats cool  
TG: cause akwete purrmusk is all man  
TG: man cat  
TG: more cat than man really  
TG: but definitely not female is my point here  
GC: 1 C4N SM3LL TH3 M4SCUL1N1TY FROM H3R3  
TG: yeah thats right you can  
TG: awkete is all masculine all the time  
TG: hes prowling through the forest  
TG: returning from a successful hunt or something  
TG: his hunger for meat is sated but his other hunger for meat is not  
TG: if you see what i mean  
TG: watching him stalk through the forest is a thing of beauty  
GC: DR34MG4Z3 1S 1ND33D W4TCH1NG FROM TH3 3NTR4NC3 OF H1S FOR3ST C4V3  
GC: H3 1S POS3D L4NGUOROUSLY LY1NG WH3R3 TH3 COLD STON3 M33TS TH3 COOL GR4SS  
TG: forest cave  
TG: do forests have caves  
GC: OBV1OUSLY FOR3STS H4V3 C4V3S OTH3RW1S3 WH3R3 WOULD TH3 FOR3ST DR4GONS L1V3?  
TG: okay sure  
TG: so akwete creeps powerfully toward you through the underbrush  
TG: looking for some forest cave nookie  
GC: 4S 4KW3T3 4PPRO4CH3S H1S NOS3 D3T3CTS TH4T DR34MG4Z3 1S 1N DR4GON H34T  
GC: WH1CH 1S L1K3 NORM4L 4N1M4L H34T BUT SOM3HOW S3X13R B3C4US3 1T 1S TH3 K1ND OF H34T TH4T ONLY DR4GONS 4R3 S3XY 3NOUGH TO B3 1N  
TG: man thats pretty sexy right there  
TG: akwete is totally into that  
TG: akwete smells deeply of the musk of dragon heat and is dragon aroused  
TG: which is like normal animal aroused except you dont need lube and dont have a refractory period because lets be honest who cares about those bits  
GC: DR34MG4Z3 H34RS 4KW3T3S 4PPRO4CH 4ND 1S 1NTR1GU3D  
GC: 1NTR1G3D 4ND 4DD1T1ON4LLY 4ROUS3D  
GC: H3 GROWLS S3X1LY 1N TH3 S3XY THRO3S OF DR4GON H34T 4ND POS3S M1GHT1LY 4T TH3 3NTR4NC3 TO H1S C4V3  
TG: yeah so ooc here a minute how is this going to work exactly  
TG: like mechanics wise  
TG: can dragons take human form or i guess cat person form or something  
GC: OBV1OUSLY TH3Y C4N T4K3 HUM4N C4T P3RSON FORM, BUT 3V3N MOR3 1MPORT4NTLY, TH3Y H4V3 TH3 4B1L1TY TO 4LLOW TH31R P4RTN3RS TO T4K3 TH3 1NF1N1T3LY SUP3R1OR *DR4GON FORM*  
TG: oh hell yes  
TG: so akwete is like turning into some kinda weird dragon cat man hybrid thing  
TG: all busting out of his shirt  
TG: but for some reason not his briefs yet  
TG: goin down on all fours and growling and furry  
TG: big ol furry tail  
TG: scaly cat wings  
TG: just a huge sloppy sexy dragon cat  
TG: he looks up at you tenderly, pawing the ground and sexily meeting your eyes  
GC: OH D4V3 1 THOUGHT YOU S41D YOU KN3W 4LL 4BOUT DR4GONS!  
GC: TH3N YOU SHOULD H4V3 KNOWN B3TT3R TH4N TO LOOK 4T MY 3Y3S, SHOULDNT YOU?  
TG: yeah  
TG: i mean obviously i knew better than that  
TG: but that was what akwete wanted to do  
TG: because  
TG: hes into the tragic romance thing i guess  
TG: so is he on fire now or what  
GC: NO, D4V3  
GC: M4NY 4LT3RN14N DR4GONS DO H4V3 UNUSU4L 3Y3S,  
GC: 4ND MY 4NC3STORS LUSUS PYR4LSP1T3 COULD S3T F1R3S W1TH H3R 3Y3S  
GC: BUT DR34MG4Z3 1S V3RY D1FF3R3NT!  
GC: 4S H1S N4M3 1MPL13S, H1S 3Y3S PUT TH3 V13W3R 1NTO 4 SORT OF TR4NC3  
GC: 1 4M TOLD TH4T WH3N TH3Y 4R3 1N TH3S3 TR4NC3S  
GC: TH3Y 4R3 V3RY SUGG3ST1BL3 4ND 34SY TO 1NFLU3NC3  
GC: NORM4LLY TH1S M1GHT S33M TO B3 4N ODD TH1NG TO DO TO ON3S M4T3!  
GC: BUT S1NC3 4KW3T3 W4S CONS3NT1NG 1 DONT 1M4G1N3 TH3R3 4R3 4NY PROBL3MS 4R3 TH3R3?  
TG: ...  
TG: ...  
GC: 4KW3T3 *W4S* CONS3NT1NG W4SNT H3 D4V3?  
GC: TH1S COULD B3 4 V3RY 1MPORT4NT QU3ST1ON  
TG: yeah of course akwete was consenting  
TG: totally enthusiastic about it  
TG: whole thing was akwetes idea  
TG: im not that terrible  
TG: dreamgaze  
TG: dreamgaze isnt that terrible  
GC: SO DR34MG4Z3 SHOULDNT H4V3 4NYTH1NG TO WORRY 4BOUT SHOULD H3?  
TG: yeah i mean akwete is an adult right  
TG: he knew what he was getting into  
TG: well okay maybe he didnt quite know  
TG: like maybe what if he knew that dragon eyes were a thing  
TG: and he looked at them on purpose  
TG: but maybe he didnt give himself as much time to think about it as he should  
TG: because hes kinda dumb sometimes  
TG: and gets carried away  
TG: thats a thing for cats you know  
GC: OF COURS3  
GC: SO 1F DR34MG4Z3 4LLOW3D 4KW3T3 TO 4CT R4SHLY DO3S 1T B3COM3 DR34MG4Z3S F4ULT?  
TG: look i dont think dreamgaze did this out of some fucked up dragon charity instinct  
TG: dreamgaze did this because that was what dreamgaze wanted  
TG: hell akwete only did this because its what he thought dreamgaze wanted  
TG: because akwete is kind of a pushover for his friends sometimes i guess  
TG: his dragon friends he just met in their forest caves  
GC: DR4GON H34T M4K3S STR4NG3 FR13NDS OF US 4LL!  
GC: SO L3TS S4Y TH4T DR34MG4Z3 1S B31NG S3LF1SH  
GC: H3 M33TS 4KW3T3S 3Y3S P4SS1ON4T3LY KNOW1NG TH4T 4KW3T3 W1LL F1N4LLY B3 H1S  
GC: H3 H4S H4D H1S 3Y3 ON TH4T P4RT1CUL4R SORT4 C4T TH1NG FOR SOM3 T1M3  
TG: akwete is hella fine yo  
TG: finest cat sorta thing in everfree forest  
TG: thats where we are btw its a mlp crossover now  
GC: DR34MG4Z3 W4TCH3S 4S 4KW3T3 3M3RG3S FROM TH3 UND3RBRUSH 4ND TR4NSFORMS 1NTO 4 M1GHTY SLOPPY S3XY C4T DR4GON  
GC: 4ND DR34MG4Z3 W4TCH3S W1TH HUNG3R 4ND LUST 4S 4KW3T3 OFF3RS H1MS3LF  
GC: 4KW3T3 OFF3RS H1S SOUL  
GC: 4KW3T3 M33TS H1S 3Y3S  
GC: H3LL Y3S TH1NKS DR34MG4Z3  
GC: H3LL  
GC: FUCK1NG  
GC: Y3S!  
GC: 4S DR34MG4Z3 SOM3T1M3S S4YS  
GC: 4ND S3LF1SHLY DR34MG4Z3 M33TS 4KW3T3S 3Y3S 4ND SP34KS TH3 WORDS OF LOV3  
GC: DR34MG4Z3 1S S3LF1SH! H3 1S 4 DR4GON 4ND L3T NO ON3 S4Y OTH3RW1S3  
GC: BUT 4R3 H1S 4CT1ONS UNJUST S1MPLY B3C4US3 TH3Y 4R3 S3LF1SH?  
GC: H4S H3 HURT 4KW3T3? H4S H3 D3C31V3D? H4S H3 STOL3N?  
TG: look akwete didnt know what he was asking  
TG: he never met a dragon before  
TG: and this shit is fucked up  
TG: its never going to work  
TG: its just going to hurt him  
TG: akwete just wanted things to work out you know  
TG: dreamgaze whichever fuck  
TG: dreamgaze just wanted things to work out  
GC: 1 KNOW D4V3  
TG: when we started this game i thought  
TG: okay this is stupid and i totally never said this  
TG: but it was like  
TG: ill finally get to meet him  
TG: and you know what happens when you win a game right  
TG: knight gets his prince  
TG: or heir i guess  
TG: thats just common sense right  
TG: tell me thats common sense  
GC: Y3S, CL34RLY 1T WOULD B3 UNF41R FOR TH3 UN1V3RS3 NOT TO P3RSON4LLY 4RR4NG3 FOR 34CH OF TH3 V1CTOR1OUS H3ROS TO R34L1Z3 TH31R ROM4NT1C 4SP1R4T1ONS  
TG: i know right  
TG: not so much to ask  
TG: but we didnt win  
TG: and hes not into me  
TG: and everyone else  
TG: is dead  
TG: and im cool  
TG: ive been working on convincing myself that maybe i can date one of the trolls right  
TG: i mean tavros is kinda cute  
TG: maybe sollux is okay  
TG: and eridan  
TG: maybe someday eridan wont be such a prissy douchebag  
GC: W3 C4N ONLY HOP3  
TG: and hey maybe prissy douchebag isnt so bad  
TG: i was dealing with it  
TG: im cool  
TG: no shortage of options  
TG: i knew he didnt see me like that  
TG: and i was ready to pack it up and move it along  
TG: and he blows in and says hey i figured everything out  
TG: all proud of himself  
TG: and i should have known better  
TG: im better than that terezi  
GC: 1F 1T W4S H1S 1D34 TH3N WH4T DO YOU TH1NK YOU D1D WRONG?  
GC: 1S TH1S 4 HUM4N TH1NG?  
TG: no you dont get it  
TG: shit like this doesnt happen to people like me  
TG: people like that dont happen to  
TG: anyway  
TG: look i dont know what i did wrong but it was obviously something  
GC: SO, D4V3  
GC: 4M 1 S3R1OUSLY TO UND3RST4ND TH4T YOUR HUG3 P3RSON4L CR1S1S 1S TH4T JOHN 3GB3RT H4S 4GR33D TO B3 YOUR M4T3SPR1T?  
TG: hey whoa i never said anything about any huge personal crisis  
GC: NO, YOU S41D TH4T YOU W3R3 H4NK3R1N FOR 4 DR4GON SP4NK3R1N  
GC: ON3 OF US W4S OBV1OUSLY 4BOUT TO H4V3 4 HUG3 P3RSON4L CR1S1S 4ND 1 H4D TO HOP3 1T W4S YOU  
TG: okay point taken  
GC: 1N MY H1GHLY PROF3SS1ON4L OP1N1ON, 1T DO3SNT SOUND L1K3 4 CR1M3 H4S B33N COMM1TT3D H3R3  
TG: you really dont think its a big deal  
GC: 4KW3T3 1S 4 B1G BOY D4V3. H3 C4N T4K3 C4R3 OF H1MS3LF  
TG: i guess  
GC: 1M SUR3 TH4T 4S 4 V3RY POW3RFUL 4ND D4NG3ROUS DR4GON  
GC: DR34MG4Z3 MUST H4V3 4N 3V3N MOR3 POW3RFUL 4ND D4NG3ROUS 4ND BR1LL14NT MO1R41L TO K33P H1M 1N CH3CK  
TG: oh god here comes the troll romance shit again  
GC: 4DM1T 1T YOU LOV3 TH3 TROLL ROM4NC3 SH1T!  
TG: never  
GC: 1F YOUR3 TH4T WORR13D 1 C4N CH3CK UP ON H1M  
GC: YOU KNOW 1 WONT L3T YOU B3 D4NG3ROUS  
TG: okay but im counting on you to slap me back in line if i fuck up  
GC: >:]  
TG: i still think karkats going to try to kill me  
GC: M4YB3!  
GC: TH4T W1LL B3 3XC1T1NG TO S33  
GC: BUT 1M 4FR41D 1 H4V3 TO B3 GO1NG D4V3  
GC: 1M ON 4 C4S3  
TG: okay i guess ill let you go then  
TG: thanks terezi i owe you  
GC: 1 H4V3 NO DOUBT YOULL R3TURN TH3 F4VOR SOM3D4Y  
TG: yeah its practically a full time job keeping each other in line huh  
TG: catch you later

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] \--

GC: <>

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

 

* * *

 

Karkat pulls away from you to confront Terezi. "Where were you? I need you to tell me what happened to my moirail!" Maybe you haven't calmed him down as much as you thought.

Terezi grins proudly. "I was engaged in an erotic cat/dragon roleplaying scene of surprising urgency and relevance. Would you like to know what I learned?"

"No, we would not like to hear about your perverted roleplaying!"

Terezi brushes past Karkat and hones in on you. "I'm here now, and ready to interrogate the victim of the crime!"

Victim of the crime? Ohhh. This is starting to make a little more sense. You knew Karkat would be a little bit upset, but it had really seemed like he was over-reacting, and it turns out you've gotten sucked into an RP and you hadn't realized it. You probably haven't even been playing your part right.

It doesn't help that Terezi and Nepeta and Dave move back and forth so fluidly between their weird roleplaying things and real life. You can't always keep track of whether they're angry, or their character is angry, or they're trying to pretend that only their character is angry but actually they're angry too, or what. But you know they like using real-life things as a basis for their scenarios; they play exaggerated versions of themselves. The thing you're doing with Dave isn't a big deal, but everyone's been taking it super-seriously, so roleplaying must be what's happening here.

So this is some kind of romantic roleplay, isn't it? Karkat's protecting you, his moirail, against Dave, his would-be kismesis. This is obviously the troll romance version of sexy elf ears and a schoolgirl outfit. You're a little vague on exactly what "sexy roleplaying" involves even on the human side, but you're pretty sure it involves a schoolgirl outfit.

And now Karkat's wearing his sexy elf ears and you didn't show up in your schoolgirl outfit! You are the worst RP'er. It's you.

Then again, you'd believe all of that from Terezi, but Karkat has never seemed that into RP, and your moirail senses are telling you that he's honestly kind of upset. What should you do? If this is just a fun RP, you want to help make things interesting, but if he's actually upset--

Well, if he's actually upset, it's because he needs to learn to take these things less seriously! As his moirail, isn't it your job to help him do that? You have an idea, and it is either going to be an awesome prank or a kickass roleplaying scenario. This will be one of your greatest acting challenges yet, but you know you're up to it.

By this point Terezi has advanced on you and been sniffing around. "So, John. Why don't you tell me what you and Dave have been up to."

You give her your best petulant glare. "Why? Why do you need to know?" You don't want to start off too strong, she hasn't done much you can take offense at yet. You have to keep this believable.

Karkat looks surprised but doesn't have a chance to say anything before Terezi answers. "As a Seer of Mind _and_ Alternia's best surviving legislacerator, you should trust me as a psychterrogator."

You huff dismissively. "Of course you think I should trust you. You're always trying to take charge of the situation, regardless of whether anyone wants you too. And I don't think you were ever a real legislacerator!" Good, that's good, that works.

Terezi stares quizzically at you. Well, obviously she doesn't literally stare at you, because she's blind, but she turns her head sideways a bit and her nostrils flare with inhalation. She looks intrigued. "Do you not want me to examine you?"

You leap up from the couch, facing her. "I don't want anything you can give me!"

She's still a few feet away from you. She doesn't advance, but she doesn't back down. "Of course I would never interrogate the victim without his consent."

She's being so reasonable. It's obviously a trick, or maybe she's seen through your acting, but it's not leaving you much to work with. "Right, because if we won't play your little games you don't want anything to do with us!" That one was okay, but not great.

Karkat, on the other hand, is either much better at roleplaying than you expected or has clearly not seen through your acting. He's been looking back and forth between the two of you, stunned. He takes a sharp breath, and you know he's ready to start ranting. He's like a motor turning over sometimes, his anger takes a minute to "catch" but then he's running. "John, what the everflipping fuck have you been talking about? You already agreed to this! Let Terezi look at you! For me! What the fuck is your problem?"

Okay, if you can really nail this one you think you can sell the whole thing. If Karkat thinks he's protecting you, he'll do almost anything, but if you and Terezi are actually black for each other, you think he'll let it go because getting involved would be ashen. You look at him, trying to let your face be stern but gentle. "I'm sorry, Karkat, but it's not your place to get between me and Terezi."

Kanaya is staring at you; she's basically been staring back and forth between you and Terezi the entire time, but she seems particularly interested now. You think she might be worried. You give her a saucy wink that no one else can see, to let her in on the plan.

Karkat looks confused, then interested, then _really_ confused, then angry, then suddenly uncertain. He sits heavily in an easy chair and watches the two of you. Got him. You totally sold your blackrom interest. You are a master prankster.

Kanaya's face is green. Is she blushing? Maybe you've been flirting with Terezi too obviously. "Well, John, do you want to explain more clearly why you're upset?"

Your idea is to imply that you're only black for Terezi because Dave hypnotized you. So you need to start working Dave in, but not make it too obvious. "I've heard enough about how she works to know she doesn't care about the good of anyone but herself." You turn to glare at Terezi again, who seems more thoughtful than annoyed.

"And where did you hear this?" asks Kanaya.

"Dave helped me realize the truth about her, but I don't know why I needed him to! Everywhere you look there's evidence of how terrible she is." You really meant to bring Dave in more subtly than that, but this roleplaying stuff is surprisingly hard.

Terezi looks interested again and grins at you. She moves a bit closer to you herself. "I would love to hear the evidence you have against me, John."

You don't think you should be too specific about this. The memory of what Dave actually _did_ say to you has mostly faded, at least from your conscious recollection. So it's probably more believable if you're similarly vague about the imaginary things that imaginary Dave told you to hate about Terezi. Also, you're still not super clear on exactly how black romance works. "The evidence is that you're terrible, selfish, and a huge disaster for everyone!" You stamp your foot.

Terezi moves closer to you and takes a final long sniff, then for some reason turns and smells towards Karkat. She looks amused. "Yes, there are certainly various mental influences at work here. But John is in no immediate danger. Kanaya, keep him here and don't allow him network access. Karkat, with me." With that she leaves. Karkat, still looking lost, bounds up from the couch to follow her.

Wow. That was kind of exhausting, but you think you pulled it off.

Kanaya looks over to you. "Well, John, I know you and Terezi have reasons to disagree, but I really think it isn't anything I couldn't help you two to work out."

Oh no. You see what's happened here. Your wink may have been a little too saucy. "Kanaya, is Karkat suddenly into roleplaying or did I just accidentally ask you out?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Arathe, TacticalTempest, and TGP for editing assistance, and to TacticalTempest for advice in Dave's characterization.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week on Lost In Your Eyes: How many quadrants can Dave Strider fill before he notices one of them?

Jesus, you didn't even think Karkat could knock that hard.

Your door is locked. Obviously. "All right Karkat, I know you're upset but give me a chance to open the god-damned door." You don't yell, because you're pretty sure you're too cool to yell. It's more like projecting. From the diaphragm, yo.

The knocking stops, so you decide you have plenty of time to tidy up the room a bit and check your hair. The secret is to wait long enough that he'll be pissed off, but not long enough that he'll actually try to break down the door. You give it exactly sixty-nine seconds. Karkat never does appreciate the things you do for him.

You tense to dodge, just in case Karkat is planning to attack, and pull open the door. He has his sickles in his hands; they're not raised, but he's gripping the handles tight enough that you think he might hurt himself. He's yet again wearing his stupidest shirt, basically covered in iconic representations of genitalia. For a moment he sputters, too angry to start talking properly, which has you almost worried. But he rallies, and begins yelling. "There you are! What the hell was so important in your block that -- no, it doesn't matter, that's not the point here! I should be glad that you stopped whatever noxious masturbatory ritual you were engaged in long enough to put pants on and --"

When Karkat is really, really angry, he always has to go at it sideways: yell about things that _aren't_ the problem long enough to sneak up on the _real_ problem. You're not exactly happy about this whole situation, but part of you is looking forward to timing exactly how long it takes him to get to the point. But he stops suddenly and stares, just as you feel a pricking pain on the side of your neck, and holy shit Terezi has her sword to your throat.

"Hey coolkid," says Terezi.

"'sup," you manage to say.

"If you reach for your shades, I'll gut you." Terezi's tone is conversational, but she's using her sword to back you slowly against the wall.

Maybe you should have been expecting this, but you weren't, and it stings. But that's fine, Terezi's cool, you can play it cool. "Maybe this isn't the time to nitpick, but I don't think you can really gut someone from the neck."

"I look forward to trying." Apparently Terezi isn't going to take any of your guff right now. This wall is a no-guff zone. That's cool, you like this wall, you and the wall can be guff abstinence buddies. You've been guff-clean for seven seconds and counting, and this wall is your sponsor. What the hell is "guff", anyway, is that even a word? You should ask Rose sometime. Maybe it's Latin for wizard dicks.

While you've been distracting yourself in your head to help you process the grief of Terezi's cruel betrayal, she's just been grinning like a shark and letting you sweat. Karkat is looking back and forth between the two of you; he leans forward occasionally as if he's about to interrupt, but thinks better of it. You think it's your line, but no one gave you the script. "So I guess you're here about John?"

At this Karkat does stomp forward, ending up next to Terezi. "Of course we're fucking here about John! I want to know what you've done to my moirail!"

This is probably a time to play nice. Karkat's worried about John, and as annoying as Karkat is, yeah, maybe you'd be worried too. "Okay, I'm ready to confess." You look over to Terezi, hoping that this is what she's been waiting for.

Terezi's grin doesn't change. "Oh, Dave, we don't need a confession from you. We just need to examine the evidence."

You're not sure what that means, but you're getting tired of being backed against this wall, guff-buddies or not. Looks like you're going to have to be the big boy here. "I'll hand over my specibus and my sylladex, then?"

Terezi just nods. You let them both drop to the floor, and Karkat picks them up almost gleefully. In a real fight you think maybe you could have done something while he was getting in Terezi's way, and he should have made you kick them over to him. But if this is a real fight you're pretty sure you're dead anyway.

Terezi lowers her sword and backs away, leading Karkat by the elbow just a bit to get him to back off. You leave the guffless wall behind and rub at the sore spot on your neck, which doesn't seem to be bleeding. Neither of them seem to be doing anything with your stuff. You still feel lost. "So, aren't you two going to examine the evidence?"

"Dave, that's a fantastic idea!" says Terezi. "I've been waiting to get a good sniff of your eyes for weeks. It's so nice of you to offer." Karkat doesn't look any happier, but he doesn't look surprised either. They're obviously in cahoots. Figures.

"I don't know what you've heard," you say, "but I got cursed. These eyes aren't open for public exhibition."

Terezi doesn't seem impressed. "Dave, your eyes can't hurt me. First, I am a Seer of Mind. Second, I am blind, remember? And third, Karkat will be there to gut your throat if you speak. Starting now. Karkat, if you'll do the honors?"

Karkat grins at this, and looks at you almost hungrily. A low rumbling noise starts in his chest. He's right up in your grill before you have a chance to react, with his chest pressed almost against yours, and his right-hand sickle at the front of your throat.

It figures. You're pretty sure he's been looking for a chance to throat-gut you since day one in this hellhole. He never quite gets the hint that _humans don't do troll romance_. This human doesn't, anyway. Whatever brain damage John has for him isn't helping your case.

You want to say something suitably dismissive and sarcastic about how grateful he must be to finally get a chance to threaten you properly, but you can tell Terezi is serious about what happens if you talk. You can always tell, and she's always serious. You don't know if he'd do it, but if not she'd probably do it herself for the principle of the thing.

So you'll have to sit back and try to enjoy the ride. Karkat's rumble is louder from this close, and he's radiating heat like a ... well, like a radiator probably, hell if you know, you grew up in Texas. He slings his left arm over your shoulder, almost casually, and you manage not to react as he presses his claws into the back of your neck a bit, barely breaking the skin.

He holds you firmly, casually, like he thinks he already owns you. That may be the most frustrating thing about him. For someone who's so convinced that every iteration of himself is so terrible, he sure does manage to act like he's already owner, king, and god of every part of the universe he chooses to grace with his presence. He assumes he's the leader. It's always his mission, his trolls, his meteor, his life. He always has to be the center of the scene. He obviously thinks he owns John, and now he's acting like he owns you.

And you know what? From up close, the dude smells _rank_! He is disgusting. What is John _thinking_ , cuddling with someone who smells like the unholy offspring of a sewage processing plant and an ammunition factory? You breathe his scent more deeply, taking a moment to just revel in how terrible it is, and how terrible he is by association.

Terezi waits for the two of you to get situated, but apparently doesn't get what she's waiting for. "No, Karkat, stand _behind_ him. You know, where you won't be able to see his eyes?"

Ha ha ha ha ha. Classic. You look at Karkat and raise one eyebrow over your shades. The rumble peaks for a moment into something that's almost a growl, but with a quick shake of his head he manages to regain control.

He walks around you in a half-circle without ever really letting go, his claws scratching thin collars around your neck. Breaking the skin, but not quite enough to draw blood. You think. He'd better hope he's not drawing blood. Then again, even with all the times he's scratched you, he wusses out whenever someone starts bleeding. You shift position as he comes to a stop, pushing your neck painfully against his claws. His growl stutters for a moment, and he yanks his claws away. Then he snarls once and settles for grabbing your shoulder possessively.

His other hand is still holding the sickle against the front of your neck, and you feel wet warmth start to crawl down the side. Not much, but enough that you know you've won. It's pathetic that he thinks he can keep up with you. But then, he wouldn't make you so angry if you didn't know that he _could_ , if you didn't know that he would win _every time_ if he stopped dicking around and arguing with himself and holding himself back long enough to actually show up to the fight.

Sometimes you want to grab him by the shoulders and shout "You're better than me! You're better than any of us! Get your fucking shit together!" You want to make him angry enough that you get through to him. You want to shock him into action, you want to make him so angry he _cries_ , you want to be the one holding a blade to his neck, you want to break him so very very very thoroughly that when you put the pieces back together there isn't any more of his _bullshit_ left, there's just Karkat Motherfucking Vantas, who learns to _man up_ and be what he's supposed to be.

You can still feel how warm he is behind you.

Terezi is watching the two of you like you're her very favorite television show. "All right, boys, if you can wait to consummate your kismesissitude until after the case, I'd appreciate it." Karkat huffs in indignation, his foul-smelling breath hot on your neck. If you were allowed to talk right now you'd point out yet again that troll romance is not a thing that's about to happen to you. They'll never find _you_ in a moirauspitude.

Terezi walks up to you and captchalogs your shades in one smooth gesture. You try not to blink in the suddenly brighter light, and you steel yourself for her sniffing around your--JESUS FUCK she just LICKED your EYE ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew! You make a strangled gagging noise at the back of your throat, causing Karkat to tighten his grip on your shoulder, but you somehow manage not to say anything.

Terezi grins at you. "You can talk again, as long as Karkat stays behind you."

"You licked my eye!" Your voice cracks a bit. You feel gross. You really want to rub your eye, even though you're not sure that would help, but you _can't_ , because Karkat is still playing bdsm games holding you prisoner in your own fucking room. "Did you really need to do that?"

"Probably not," says Terezi. "I was almost certain from examining John. Whatever insanity the two of you are up to is voluntary on his part, and if you ever _did_ need it removed that would be well within my abilities."

Karkat growls deep in his chest; you can feel the vibration in his hand on your shoulder. "John is all right? You _knew_ John was all right?" You have to give your girl some props for this one; that's a growl you've only gotten out of him a couple of times, and not for lack of trying. It doesn't mean he's violent (you've only gotten _that_ one once, and you're hoping not to get it again), but it does mean he's about to throw the mother of all hissy fits.

Terezi shrugs casually. "I wasn't willing to render a verdict until I was completely sure. Exposing the truth is my duty as a legislacerator."

You're expecting Karkat to start yelling at Terezi, or you, or the universe in general, or some combination; but he snarls and pulls his sickle away. He pushes his way past you, then turns back and shoves your sylladex and specibus into your arms. His eyes flicker up to your face before you can react. His eyes are yellow, with gray irises, and you stare at him stupidly. His face starts to slacken for a moment; then he growls again and it's _definitely_ the violent one this time, and he whirls around and storms out.

You were already keenly aware of your lack of shades, but after that you feel straight-up naked. Terezi's grin hasn't faltered. "So, coolkid," she asks, "ready for the verdict?" She doesn't wait for an answer. "Dave Strider, the only thing that you are guilty of is having eyes which are too delicious!"

You half-shrug. "Yeah, I knew I was pretty great."

"On to the sentencing! Dave Strider, you are sentenced to an indefinite period of probation. Let it be known that if you do anything stupid, I will kick your ass personally."

Okay, see, there you go. She's crazy, but she's your crazy. Girl's got your back. "Okay, cool. I'm kind of counting on it."

Terezi continues. "Your eyes, on the other hand, need to be moved to a higher-security facility, for the safety of the public." Heh. Wait, what?

She's not going to cut out your eyes. She's totally not going to cut out your eyes, she is not that crazy, you are _almost_ sure that she is not that crazy.

Terezi sniffs at her Scratch-n'-Sniff modus for a second, pulling out (please don't be a melon baller) something bunched up and bright red. "Your shades don't cover your eyes thoroughly enough. I've alchemized you something better. You'll wear it whenever you're in public." You note that she does not phrase this as a request.

Terezi starts to reach forward, then a look of uncertainty flickers across her face. It's unusual for her, and it does something funny to your stomach. "Would you like me to put them on for you?" she asks, her voice iron.

Something in the moment feels important, and you do your best to ignore it. "Sure, why not?"

She fixes an elastic-banded pair of goggles around your head, then steps back, sniffs at you, and smiles. "You smell delicious!" This is probably related to the bright red of the goggles. You hope. You walk over to your mirror to examine your punishment.

You are wearing a bright red pair of plastic novelty goggles with a dark red "hypnotic" swirl completely covering each eye. There are sequins on the nosepiece and more sequins on the elastic band. They fit snugly, comfortably, perfectly; your eyes are definitely not getting out without your permission. You have never felt more ironically dressed in your life, and it feels good.

"Kick ass," you say. That's all you need to say; she knows you approve. You hope this doesn't hurt John's feelings, but you really have been worrying about whether the shades were covering your eyes enough. "I will need the shades back. They were a gift from John, you know."

"Since the prisoner was allowed to live, his possessions can be returned to him." She hands you back your shades carefully. She respects when something's important to you. You appreciate that.

Well, it seems like the crisis is over for now, and from how Karkat left you don't think you'll be seeing John again tonight. "So, want to hang out or something?"

"I'd love to! I have the _best_ activities, Dave! All of the survivors will be _astounded_ by the quality of my event planning!"

That's your girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [Arathe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Arathe/) for constant encouragement and suggestions, to [TacticalTempest](http://tacticaltempest.tumblr.com/) for suggestions including how to make the Dave<3<Karkat more intense, and to [TGP](http://tgpretender.tumblr.com/) for suggestions and writing advice.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Karkat have a very intimate feelings jam. Emotions are discussed, shirts are shed, and John resolves to have a real pool party someday. By the end of the chapter, even the characters are concerned with how much shameless pale fluff is happening.
> 
> Seriously, it's getting kind of weird. That's a plot point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, it just didn't want to split into smaller parts!

By the time Karkat storms in, you’ve thoroughly apologized to Kanaya for your ashen advances. He doesn’t seem injured or covered in blood; he looks furious, but he doesn’t have the guilt or fear he’d have if he was going to have to tell you he’d hurt Dave. Part of you relaxes when you see him, even though your brain keeps chanting that none of this was such a big deal anyway.

Karkat goes straight from the transportalizer to the couch you’re on; you’ve only half-finished standing up when he throws his arms around you and pulls you to him with a loud growl. Your arms are around his shoulders before you even think. He squeezes you tight enough to hurt, his hands clenched into fists. He smells like coffee and strawberries and _Karkat_ ; you know you’re squeezing him back just as hard.

Karkat’s growling actually gets louder when you start rubbing your hands in circles on his back and neck. He shifts position, slipping a hand under your shirt and pulling you tighter against him. You want to do the same, so he can feel you against his skin, but you know how he feels about his body, so you just hold on. His growl stutters into sharp, quick snarls as he shakes with what you think must be some kind of troll anger-sob.

You hear Kanaya say something, presumably scandalized or amused, but you can’t tell what and this isn’t the time to check. Once Karkat starts to calm a little bit, you move one hand around to stroke his jaw, continuing to rub slow, firm circles on his back with the other. His growling quiets slowly. You pat his jaw rhythmically, open-handed, firmly but at the glancing angle he prefers. “Shoosh, shoosh,” you say, and by now it almost doesn’t feel silly at all.

Karkat transitions seamlessly from growling to cursing. His first attempts aren’t really _sentences_ , exactly, but you wait, and he starts to make sense. “She fucking _knew_ you were okay, she knew it, they both knew it! And why the fuck does any of this even make any sense?! And it was a fucking game to him, and I hate him! I hate him!! I fucking despise him!” He snarls after this admission, but he doesn’t break eye contact, and you keep papping his face.

“It’s okay if you hate him,” you say, and as strange as it is, it feels true. You trust Karkat. “It’s okay.”

“It’s okay if I hate him,” Karkat repeats dumbly. There’s a moment where you’re both completely quiet, then he snorts and starts laughing. He gets caught up in it, and you’re so happy to hear him laughing that you laugh too, and before you know it you’re both laughing hysterically, uncontrollably. You collapse together onto the couch and laugh. When you both finally stop he looks at you, brushing a bang back from your forehead with gentle claws. “I don’t know what the hell I did to deserve you, John, but I hope you know I’m never giving you back. Strider will have to share.”

Kanaya makes four strange clicking noises, and Karkat looks over to her, seeming to wait. When she starts talking calmly and doesn’t seem annoyed, you decide it must have been the troll version of clearing her threat. “As sorry as I am to interrupt, I believe John had something to admit to you.” What? Oh. Heh.

You give Karkat an embarrassed half-smile and take his hand. “The blackrom thing with Terezi was … kind of a prank. I thought you two were just roleplaying, and it got out of hand, and I’m sorry.”

Karkat just closes his eyes and rubs at his forehead with his free hand. “Of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be a prank? It’s fine, it’s fine, that’s fine, it’s not like you two would make any sense together anyway.”

You swat at him. “What? Of course we would make sense! She was the first person to ever kill me, you know! Isn’t that romantic?”

“No, that is the stupidest plot to a romance that I have ever heard. Killing isn’t what kismesissitude is about at all!” You think he’s going to start lecturing, but then he notices your grin. “And you know that perfectly well, so don’t pretend you don’t!” He makes the short rumbling half-growl you think of as his “harrrrumph” noise.

Kanaya stands up from her seat and walks to hover by the couch you and Karkat have claimed. “As wonderful and as unexpectedly intimate as this evening has been, I’m afraid I’ll need to be retiring soon if I’m going to have any chance of keeping up with the John and Karkat Unified Sleep Schedule Plan. I’m sure you’ll understand if I have to ask the two of you to leave.”

“It’s the Karkat and John Sleep Schedule Unification Plan,” you say, before Karkat has a chance to. “And thanks, Kanaya. You put up with a lot from us.”

“I appreciate that you’ve noticed,” says Kanaya.

You and Karkat walk to the transportalizer, still holding hands. Karkat stops before the pad and turns to you. “I’m still expecting you to make it to breakfast and dinner tomorrow, even if you’re busy with Dave the rest of the day. Wait, I’m being an idiot again, I can walk you back to your room from here.”

Karkat is being mature about everything, and it’s killing you. Now that he’s thinking about tomorrow he seems quiet; resigned; defeated. You’ve really been kind of a heel tonight, haven’t you? You _know_ Karkat is a huge worrier, and maybe you should have been expecting how hard this would be for him. And tonight has really shown you how much he has your back, hasn’t it? Obviously _all_ of your friends are awesome, and you trust them to be there for you, but with Karkat it’s more than that. For him, defending you is more personal; more intimate. If anything serious _does_ ever happen, Karkat will be there for you.

And this must be hard for him. You and Karkat have been spending a _lot_ of time together, but now you’ve filled a second quadrant, and he hasn’t (at least, not yet). That kind of quadrant imbalance seems to be the “friends vs. girlfriend” of troll romantic comedy. You’re going to have more demands on your time, and he won’t, and it’s probably going to be lonely for him. As happy as you are about Dave, you still know that today is the end of you and Karkat having each other’s undivided attention.

You know what you want. “Karkat? Could you, um.” You open and close your mouth a few times and squeeze his hand hard. “Would you like to — would you stay with me, tonight?”

Karkat looks at you, trying to make your words make sense. “What? Already? It’s so soon. Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I am! Look, I didn’t know what to expect with all of this. And I don’t pretend I understand what’s happening, and maybe I never will! But maybe I don’t need to. I feel safe with you. I lo—like—would like to sleep with you. Pale sleep with you! Moirail sleep! Just, like, literal sleeping, but with you!” You are an embarrassment to yourself and a coward, but you haven’t used the “l” word yet, and you’re not sure if that’s the word Karkat is waiting for anyway. And Kanaya is listening a little too closely for this to seem like the right time.

Karkat looks frightened. “I can’t, fuck, we don’t know if you can sleep in a recuperacoon and I’m sure as hell not sleeping on your perverted human sex platform, and my room is a mess, and I have a lot to do tomorrow, I have to get to sleep, and—“

“Shoosh.” You only say it once, calmly and quietly, but he stops talking. You rub his hand between both of yours. He looks constipated, but he nods, once. Your heart thrills in a way you weren’t exactly expecting. “We can always work out the practical details. I’ve touched sopor slime, and it mostly seemed kinda tingly, so it’s probably safe.”

Kanaya is still watching you. “Sopor slime is safe for humans to sleep in, but a human who hasn’t built up any tolerance will fall asleep quickly, so don’t plan on any activities once you go to ‘coon.”

Karkat whirls on her in horror. “ _Activities_? Are you and Lalonde having SEX in your RECUPERACOON?? No, no, god, I didn’t ask that, don’t tell me that! Don’t tell me anything!”

Kanaya smiles to herself. “I simply assumed that the two of you might want to talk before you went to sleep.”

You grin at that. You’re going to _talk_ , and then you’re going to _go to sleep_. With Karkat. You’re grinning like an idiot and bouncing up and down on your feet a little because you feel like you’re about to get laid, and you’re starting to worry a little bit because this relationship is just maybe the weirdest thing you’ve ever done.

Is this like sex? Is this moirail sex? You’re “sleeping with” him, heh, and isn’t _that_ a weird thing to think, because Karkat’s a boy, so you’re sleeping with a _him_ , but he’s an _alien_ boy, so that’s hardly the same, right? And anyway, it’s not sex! You’re just happy because it’s so delicate and so intimate and it means that Karkat really really trusts you, he does. He’s been so self-conscious about some things that you were starting to worry a little.

And with everything that’s happened, it’s been hard, sleeping alone. Part of you keeps thinking that you should find Karkat or Dave or Jade or _anyone_ and say “No homo, mind if I crash here? Maybe just a hug?” But wow. Dave. Um. Dave might not be a good choice for that any more. But now you can sleep with Karkat!

Agggh, that still sounds wrong. But that’s still kinda what it feels like.

You’re pretty sure that you have had the most confusing two weeks in the history of paradox space. But you look at Karkat, and he’s almost smiling (you can tell), and you grin again, and you sweep him up in your arms and bury your face in his shoulder and smell his strawberry-coffee scent, and he hugs back just as hard. So sure, you’re about to get laid, why not? You’re about to get pale-laid in a giant bucket of slime. That’s your plan for the rest of the night, and you’re going to run with it.

You and Karkat let go, and you both say goodbye to Kanaya, who really has been very very tolerant tonight. You start walking back towards Karkat’s room. “So if we’re going to be in your recuperacoon, it’s basically like a pool party, right?”

“Yes, John, it is exactly like a human pool party. When a troll and another troll pity each other very much, they sometimes tolerate each other’s presence so well that they can soothe each other’s night terrors in a process known to romantics throughout the ages as a ‘pool party’. Many ballads have been written about the pool party, and every one of our greatest minstrels knew _exactly what the fuck you were talking about_.”

You look at Karkat and grin. “Awesome. We need to stop by an alchemiter on the way back. We are going to have the _best_ human pool party, Karkat!”

It’s surprisingly easy to get the alchemiter to make a blue, breath-themed pair of swim trunks; this game seems perfectly happy to slap your iconography on everything you touch. You try to let Karkat take the lead with alchemizing, because he really enjoys the puzzle-solving aspects once he gets into it, but then again so do you, so you end up doing a lot of back-seat driving.

You usually sleep in a shirt; are you going to be cold in just swim trunks? Is sopor slime cold? You only get as far as saying “Is the — wait, um, never mind,” because you remember that Karkat is so warm that you won’t have a problem. But you can’t _explain_ that that’s what you were about to ask, because he’s so self-conscious about his blood and you’re not supposed to say anything about how warm he is. And now you’re blushing because you’re thinking about how warm Karkat is, and why the hell are you blushing about that? But Karkat is still looking at you so you finish with “Do you already have swim trunks?”

“Are you seriously asking me whether I need my moirail to make me new clothes to sleep in my own ‘coon?”

“Well with your terrible sleep habits I’m surprised you’ve ever had a chance to use your ‘coon!” You stick your tongue out at him. “You must have regretted missing the chance to catch a 30-minute nap at your computer and then claim you’re fine for the day.”

You and Karkat bicker familiarly through the rest of the alchemizing process, and he drags you away before you’ve had a chance to get the pool-appropriate refreshments you were hoping for. At least you have a selection of swimwear for yourself and some rather oddly-themed pool toys. You hadn’t even known they _made_ a Ghostbusters II MMORPG Officially Licensed Inflatable Inner Tube, but you’re sure as hell not going back to Karkat’s without wearing it!

Karkat has been unusually tolerant tonight, and now that you think about it you’re starting to get a little bit worried. You go back to his room without even threatening to put on the flippers, snorkel, or face mask, and when he doesn’t want to wear the water wings you don’t put up a fight. He spends the walk grumbling at you from behind a pile of beach balls and pool noodles.

When you get back to the room, Karkat dumps the pool supplies into a heap (it’s not a pile until it’s on purpose). You realize you’ll have to take your inner tube off again before you can put on your swim trunks. “I was going to change. Could you turn around?”

The request seems to take Karkat by surprise, but he turns around completely before starting to complain. “It’s not like I have any desire for whatever weird human genitals you’re concealing, John, and I’m really not sure that it’s appropriate for you to apply your human nudity taboos to your moirail, but I’m prepared to be stunningly multicultural, as always. I hope you appreciate it.”

“I do. Okay, done.” You shuck off your shirt while he’s turning back towards you. Then you spread out a big beach towel next to his ‘coon, set the beach umbrella up jauntily against the ‘coon, and promptly feel stupid for having taken off your shirt. The pile is going to be pool-party _themed_ , sure, but there’s not actually any water, and you can’t go into the slime until you’re ready to fall asleep.

You’ve never been the one to set up the pile, but Karkat is busy fussing — cleaning up the last pile, putting his sickles away, using what looks like some sort of troll hand moisturizing cream, and fiddling with the settings on the recuperacoon. You’re pretty sure he’s just trying to waste time. So you prop up an inflatable raft against the recuperacoon for your backs, sprinkle around some pool toys, and try to make a comfortable side-by-side pile. You leave most of the less-comfortable objects on his side, because somehow it seems to help him talk to have a plastic snorkel jabbing him in the back.

You end up lounging against the raft, juggling a large inflatable beach ball back and forth with your control of the wind (which is pretty much the awesomest thing ever). You’re starting to get a bit cold, and the pool theme feels a bit silly without Karkat playing along, but you don’t want to rush him. Eventually he comes over and looks at the pile, and apparently it’s okay, so he sits to your left. His side is warm against you but his back is still ramrod-straight.

He takes your hand in his and threads his fingers between yours; his hand is hot and rubbery, and still a little slick with whatever moisturizer he uses. With his left hand he takes off his shoes and socks deliberately, one at a time, pausing after each to set it delicately off to the side. You give his hand a reassuring squeeze each time.

Once his shoes and socks are off, Karkat’s hand plays at the hem of his shirt, but you’re not going to press the issue right now. You snuggle yourself against him and bask in the warmth. You fit your head into the crook of his shoulder, and decide that you should take the initiative in getting him talking. “You know, Karkat, you must be the snuggliest alien on the entire meteor.”

You and Karkat quibble for a while about which of you should properly be considered “alien”, but he seems to have the good sense not to dispute your relative snuggliness levels. He is totally the snugglier of the two of you. You’re certain of it. You snuggle closer.

By unspoken agreement you both keep things light for a while, planning out new approaches to the Breakfast Cereal problem and letting him complain about the various trolls’ inabilities to understand that _communal_ meals were something that they were all supposed to make time for. You play with his hair, and he rubs your back, and it’s _nice_ , it’s relaxed, it’s the way things are supposed to be.

But you wouldn’t be a good moirail if you ignored the things you know Karkat needs to talk about. You’re pretty sure that if you let _him_ take the lead you’ll spend three hours talking about chores and meals together and then go to sleep. God, that sounds nice, but you can’t. You know he’s been stressed and angry and worried about you. You’re not sure exactly how to help, because as many movies as you’ve watched in the last few weeks you’re still not sure how juggling multiple quadrants is supposed to work in practice. But you have to try.

You wait for one of the topics to die down a bit, then you sit up and look him in the eyes, taking both of his hands in yours. “Karkat? I really am sorry. I should have talked with you about Dave.”

Karkat starts to say something, then stops himself; this repeats several times. You start grinning at him despite yourself, and that’s the trigger he needs to get going. “Oh, I’m glad this is funny to you, John! ‘My moirail doesn’t instantly know how to react to my heartfelt apology, hee hee!’ Ticket to laughsville, coming right up, idiots are now boarding!” But by the end he’s starting to laugh too, just a little.

You smile fondly at him for a moment, then look down, trying to figure out how to describe tonight. “I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to fix everything that I didn’t think about how it would affect anyone else. I’ve been really, really worried about Dave.”

Karkat grimaces. “I still don’t see how anyone could pity someone so smug and insufferable and _terrible_. But I guess I’ll have to accept that you do.” He’s getting fidgety, but neither of you want to let go of each other’s hands, so he’s swinging your hands back and forth.

This is probably the best opening you’re going to get. You grin at him. “I guess we’ve established that you don’t really _pity_ him at all, huh? I know it’s going to be hard for me to understand, but why don’t you tell me what you hate about him?”

Karkat sighs a long-suffering sigh and clicks irregularly a few times, under his breath. You think he’s looking for words. He pulls his hands back and buries his face in them, tapping his foot impatiently and trying to figure out what to say. “He’s…terrible! Everything about Dave Strider is terrible. I can’t imagine how anyone could possibly know where to start cataloguing the horrible things about him, and if somehow someone _did_ manage to start, it would have to be with the knowledge that it was a suicide mission, because they would die of old age long before ever completing it.”

You rub Karkat’s leg with your hand, just below the knee. You’ve learned a lot about how to touch him without making him defensive or panicky. Never mention how warm he is, or how soft his hair is. Legs from the knee down are fine, arms from about mid-bicep down are fine. Head and neck are fine. His back and his stomach are okay, usually, as long as you don’t get anywhere near his sides.

His sides are never, ever fine. You know that trolls have scars from their grub legs, because Sollux and Nepeta don’t always bother wearing shirts. Not that you were looking! Much! But plenty of movies have the obligatory shirtless scenes, and you’re pretty sure those scars are normal, and Karkat is anything but normal about his body. You think he might have some sort of deformity or terrible scarring, and when you do finally see him without a shirt on, you’re going to be supportive and accepting, even if his body is really weird and gross.

Sometimes you think that maybe he still has grub legs, withered and weak and attached to his sides like little mutant chicken wings. And if he does, you will love his gross little mutant T-rex chicken wings. You will give him chicken wing massages and you will go for chicken wing high fives and you will tell him that he is beautiful. That’s just how that’s going to be.

You continue rubbing Karkat’s leg. As you expected, even though he just finished explaining how he couldn’t possibly talk about Dave, he starts up again. “You know what I really hate? He pretends to be too cool to care about what anyone thinks, but if he thinks for even a moment that no one’s paying attention to him, he goes pants-wettingly retarded until he’s the center of everything again. Look at me! I drew human genitalia on all of your possessions with glitter pens! Am I cool yet?”

You chuckle, and try not to smile too fondly, but Karkat’s complaining about exactly the thing you find most adorable about Dave. You’re not sure how long you’ve had a list of the adorable things about Dave, and you’re not even quite sure what else is on it, but his needy vulnerability is apparently right at the top. But you’ll think about that later. “You have to admit that shirt was kind of boring before.”

“It was the same as all of my shirts! Black, and with my symbol! It was _my_ shirt, and now it’s ruined. He ruined it.”

You gesture at the glitter dicks covering Karkat’s torso. “So why do you keep wearing it?”

“Because otherwise he’d win!”

They’re like four-year-olds. And now they’re both _your_ four-year-olds, and you couldn’t regret it for even a second. Maybe _this_ is what quadrants are about — you get to be greedy. You get everyone you want, the way you want them. You are the luckiest person who has ever lived, and all you can think to say is, “You’re my moirail.”

Karkat draws back slightly and seems worried by what you said. “If Dave and I did go out, would that be a problem? I know you’ve said that me filling quadrants would be okay, but that was when neither of us had any quadrants, and you’re going to have to get used to going out with me and Dave both, you know that, right?”

You make soothing motions with your hands. “No, no, it’s okay! It’s better than okay! You’re my boyfriend, and he’s — no, you’re my moirail, and he’s my boyfriend, and — Karkat, this is all so fucking weird, I don’t understand any of this.” You slump down against him, and he turns towards you and wraps his arms around you, his claws playing lightly on your bare chest. “My life doesn’t make sense.”

“Your face doesn’t make sense,” says Karkat quietly, entirely by rote. “But I don’t think my life makes sense either.”

You’re both quiet for a minute, but it’s an expectant quiet, uncomfortable for both of you. It’s a feeling you’ve come to recognize in these jams: there are things you _need_ to talk about, and you can’t be comfortable until you let them out. Feelings bubble to the surface, and eventually the bubbles pop and the words spill out. You can’t imagine holding back. You almost can’t imagine wanting to.

You hold loosely to Karkat’s forearms as he rests his hands flat on your chest, and you let your brain do its bubbling moirail thing. It goes faster if you don’t push; the things that come to the surface often aren’t what you would have expected, but you always feel better afterwards, cleansed, scoured clean. Karkat’s bubbles apparently pop first today. The vulnerability in his voice would surprise most of your friends. “Do you think he hates me?” His claws tap nervously against your skin.

“I think maybe?” you say, before your brain really engages. “I don’t know why troll romance is working so well, but somehow it is? And he’s been acting kind of weird about you. Maybe he really does hate you.”

“It’s working because troll romance is infinitely superior to human romance, which is so obvious that even Strider can perceive it.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for. Isn’t he acting like he hates you?”

You feel a long puff of air in your hair. “Yeah, I think he is. I think he hates me.” His tone is wondrous, revelatory. You want to twist around and look at his face, but Karkat’s smiles are such fragile things you can’t imagine it would survive. “When I had my blade at his throat, he did this hissing thing with his breath, and even if he can’t growl properly, I knew what he meant.”

At _that_ you do turn around, pulling out of his arms to look at him in horror. “You had your _blade_ at his _throat_? Is that normal? You said blackrom was only that violent in the movies! I’m not okay with this if you and Dave are going to kill each other!”

Karkat swallows his smile as soon as he sees your face, and he pats the sides of your jaw with open hands. “Shoosh, shoosh, I’m not going to kill him. I wouldn’t.”

If he thinks he can make you feel better by papping your face, well, he’s right, it always calms you down. But you’re not going to drop this now! You push at his hands with your arms, and he stops immediately. “You can’t distract me with your space voodoo! We’re talking about this.”

Karkat rubs his arms guiltily, but still manages to look annoyed. “He’s my kismesis. He will be my kismesis. If he _is_ my kismesis — you know what? Fuck it. He _will_ be my kismesis. And once he is, he will know my wrath, and it will be great and terrible, and if he ever once even _thinks_ that I am obligated to tolerate his vainglorious desperate-for-attention _bullshit_ I will shut him down so fast his _descendants_ will go begging to try and afford enough ointment to soothe the blistered chafing from when their shameglobes hit the pavement.”

Karkat stops for a moment and deflates a bit. “Not that that would apply to whatever descendants you and Dave have in your disgusting mammal matespritship, which as terrible as it may be is something that I’m going to have to get used to now.”

“That’s not how it works! You _know_ that’s not how it works. You have literally drawn us romantic pairing diagrams that indicate that you know that that’s not how it works.”

Karkat snorts. “I don’t want to think about how it works.”

You’re getting tired of being twisted around, so you nudge Karkat’s legs apart and climb between them to sit facing him. He’s still leaning against the inflatable raft, and you look down into his face. “You were explaining why you weren’t going to kill him?”

Karkat sits up and puts his hands on your biceps, looking into your eyes and going firmly into intensive-romance-lecture mode. “Because that’s not what it’s _about_. If I killed him I wouldn’t _win_. I would never see in his eyes that he _knew_ that I was finally _better_ than him, that I don’t _need_ him, that I’m not fucking _impressed_!”

“But you are impressed.” It comes out of you without effort or thought, just a reflexive need to confront your moirail when he’s not being honest.

Karkat growls violently, but not at you, and you barely move. “I don’t _want_ to be! I _hate_ him!” He bunches his fists at his side and his growl rises into a loud roar for a few seconds, then he sags. “Move over here,” he says, sounding tired; he guides you to sit against the pool pile, then scoots back against you. His soft, soft hair tickles your chest as he lies back, and he’s warm against your stomach even through his shirt. You rub his neck and his shoulders through his shirt, and he starts rubbing at your calves like he’s trying to scrub the dishes.

“Hey, careful, not so hard,” you say.

He lets up. “Sorry,” he says, and then after a moment, “Pft, humans.”

“Trolls.” You’re both quiet for a moment, and you feel yourself bubbling again, but it comes to you quickly. “If he’s acting black, why are you worried he doesn’t hate you?”

This is apparently not the right question. Karkat stiffens, then seems to force himself to relax. You can practically hear him thinking about what he’s going to say, which you’re pretty sure is cheating. You move your hands to his jaw, papping slowly. “Shoosh, shoosh, it’s okay, we don’t have to talk about that, shoosh.” Karkat’s head leans back into your hands.

You’re completely willing to let the topic drop. When Karkat is really, really upset about something, he always has to go at it sideways: talk about things on the _edge_ of the problem long enough to sneak up on the _real_ problem. You’ve obviously hit something sensitive, and you’re sure the edges will bubble up in their time; maybe not today, but soon enough. But Karkat does answer. “Trolls have a lot of nonverbal cues that humans don’t. I probably wasn’t picking up the right cues from him. I know he hates me, but it doesn’t always _feel_ like he hates me.”

“Nonverbal cues? Like body language?”

“Body language, smell, other things.”

You breathe in deep through your nose, taking in his scent. “I knew it!”

Karkat turns his head to look up at you. He seems afraid. “You did?”

“Shoosh, it’s okay, I like the smell, don’t worry. It’s actually gotten really comforting, in a way. I just think it’s funny that I can smell your feelings.”

Karkat seems more relieved than you’d expect. “You can smell my feelings. Wow. That may be the single most unromantic thing that I have ever heard said about moirallegiance; about any of the quadrants. We share a special, intimate bond, which allows you to smell my feelings for you. Truly this olfactory empathy means that our connection was written in the stars.”

You wish you could let this drop here, but you’ve found a terrible, terrible worry. There’s a sinking feeling in your stomach and you don’t know if you’ll be able to sleep if you don’t ask this. “Is that a problem with us? Does it not feel like I’m pale for you?” Your mouth is dry.

“No, no, it’s not a problem with us.” He gapes at you, searching for something more to say. You know immediately that this is what he’s been dreading. “It’s not.” His cheeks are flushed a dark red. “I found a way around it, but it’s embarrassing, and I don’t think you’d understand, and can we not talk about it tonight? It’s nothing that affects you, and it’s not a problem with us. I promise. My feelings agree with my brain — if we were any more idiotically pale for each other we’d forget to breathe.”

Your heart has started again. You don’t know what ‘a way around it’ means, and this is obviously something you’re going to need to talk about, but it’s not the disaster you were dreading, and you can give him time. You run your hands through his hair, marveling again at how soft it is, and decide it’s time for some of your patented John Egbert Pale Charm. “If I did forget to breathe, you’d be there to remind me.”

Karkat grumbles vaguely, but he relaxes back against you, letting himself slide down onto your thigh. You are a romance _master_. You stroke his hair for a while, and eventually a deep rumbling purr starts in his chest. You love this part, just after he finishes. He’s happy. He’s listening, expectant but somehow infinitely patient. He looks up at your face.

You know that once you start talking, he’ll focus, come back to himself, and you wish you didn’t have to start. You want to stay here forever, watching him let himself be vulnerable. He can be combative and defensive with everyone else, in every other moment of his day; but here, with you, for the brief moments after he’s finished talking, he’s safe, and he knows it. His hands bat at your side occasionally, and he shifts position idly back and forth, looking up at your face and waiting.

Your hands are both in Karkat’s hair, almost still, and he brings his own hands up to his face. He rubs at his jaw and his entire body _shudders_ in a way you’ve never seen; then he pulls them away quickly. You move one hand around to his jaw, and he leans up into it, but it doesn’t quite seem the same.

You should have been paying more attention to his face. Was he embarrassed to have to do it for himself? You’re not sure if that was an embarrassed shudder or what. Maybe he had trouble being verbal enough to ask. As over-used as the pun is, he really is kind of like a kitten like this. Once he had licked you, long and slow and innocent across your stomach, and you had had to explain that that was _definitely_ more of a flushed thing for humans, or at least for you.

You wish you could stay like this forever, but his expectant waiting pulls at you. Your mind feels blank, but the last few days flicker below the surface like dreams, half-remembered visions and feelings and worries.

“Dave,” you say, as a bubble bursts.

Karkat gives a brief, half-hearted snarl, and his eyes focus more clearly on your face, but he waits. His purr is quieter but he doesn’t seem particularly disturbed.

You gesture with your hands in front of you, trying to make your thoughts make sense. “Can I really go out with all three of us? I mean, with both of you, and you go out with each other too? You know I can’t follow the movies with troll love triangles!”

Karkat frowns dismissively, and lazily waves a hand in the air. “Your human so-called ‘love triangles’ aren’t even triangles. Half the time it’s just one male trying to decide between two females. They’re just some sort of flushed heteronormative love wedge.”

“Is heteronormative another troll thing?”

Karkat rubs his forehand with his hand and slowly begins sitting up. “I am not explaining your own species’ limited forms of romance to you again. Ask Lalonde. She’s very helpful.”

You ignore this advice, as Karkat has clearly been compromised. “I just need to know whether I can talk to you about stuff with Dave.” You gently pull Karkat back to sit by your side on the pile, with your arm carefully around his shoulder (never his side). He slings his own arm around you.

“You can talk with me about anything. Always.” There’s a pause as he mentally shifts gears back into mini-lecture mode. “Trolls are used to tightly-woven relationships. When we’re pil—talking, it’s about you, not about anyone else. Emotionally, the ‘Dave’ you’re talking about is a completely different person to me from the Strider fucker I had to face down tonight.”

Something inside you relaxes, and you rest your head on his shoulder. You had been holding back, afraid that you couldn’t talk about what you need to, and being able to let that go is an almost physical relief. Karkat brings his arm up from your side to begin pushing against the side of your face, rhythmically and hard, like he’s trying to repeatedly high-five your gums through your cheek.

“Softer,” you mumble, and he goes softer, but by then the world is going a little fuzzy with warmth and safety and strawberries, and you’re not sure he needed to. “I’ve been confused a lot today.”

“No shit?” asks Karkat, but not harshly.

“Yeah.” His paps are longer strokes now, and your breathing feels in tune with the rhythm. Your mouth moves almost without your volition. “Not everything you said made sense all of the time, and everything Dave said made sense, but it made other things not make sense any more, even though they used to, you know?”

Karkat makes non-committal noises and keeps papping.

“I bet it’ll make more sense tomorrow. Humans process things while they sleep, I think?”

There’s silence for a while, and Karkat eventually asks, “Are you happy?”

The question echoes around in your head, and you feel yourself grinning stupidly, unreservedly. “I’m going out with him. He’s my best friend and he was sad and now he can be happy, and — I want to be romantic, Karkat. I’m going to take him on dates, and I’m going to surprise him with flowers, and I’m going to win his heart.”

“You already have his heart, doofus.”

“But I’m going to show him I deserve it.”

Karkat nuzzles his cheek into your hair. “He’s lucky. Anyone who gets to be in a quadrant with you is lucky.”

“Mmmm,” you say, eloquently. After another timeless bubbling moment, you say, “He didn’t want to, you know. I kind of pushed a little.”

Karkat lazily massages your cheek with his hand. “I will never stop being amazed at the shit you get yourself into.”

“Yeah, I know. I should have talked to you.”

Karkat jabs a finger dramatically into your cheek. “And next time you’re going to.”

You roll your eyes a bit and yawn. “And next time I’m going to. I promise. It really isn’t a big deal, you know? We’re going to try it, and if I don’t like it, we’ll stop. I trust him.”

Karkat is quiet for a moment. “I’ll trust you on this. But you know if he hurts you I’ll never forgive him.”

Your worries about violence seem distant; you feel safe, because Karkat is here. “I know you’d protect me.”

Karkat grumbles something, and you both relax against each other. Your hands find each other and you interleave your fingers idly. You look at his neck and there’s a moment where you almost lick him, but that would be weird, so you nibble on his hair for a moment and pretend you were just smelling him. He gives a troll yawn, which isn’t very much like a human yawn at all and involves a lot of clicking and stuttering and not very much mouth-opening, but you’re used to him enough that it’s still contagious, so you yawn, and then he’s yawning again.

You’re sure that you both still have a lot to talk about, but it’s getting late, and you feel emptied and raw as it is. Troll romance, huh? You sit up halfway. “We should probably get to bed, huh? To ‘coon I guess?”

Karkat grimaces and looks solemn. “Sounds good.” He doesn’t sit up.

“Are you, um — are you going to wear the penises to bed?” You wave in the direction of Karkat’s glitter-covered torso.

“It doesn’t matter, I sleep here now. This pile is my ‘coon. Dump some slime on my head and I’ll be good to go.”

“Okay!” You start sifting through the pile for something to threaten to slime him with. You expect this to spur him into action, but he just shivers once and burrows deeper into the pile, so you stop pretending and squat down on your haunches in front of him. You’re still on enough of a pale buzz that you talk without stopping to think. “I’m sorry you don’t want to take your shirt off. You know you don’t have to.”

“Of course I fucking know that! It’s my shirt! But I’m not ruining a perfectly good already ruined shirt by sleeping in it.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t want your dicks to get soggy.”

“Soggy? Your genitals get _soggy_? How the fuck do you have a human pool party if your genitals collect water like some sort of disgusting reproductive dishsponge?”

“No, I just meant the glitter pen!” You have a horrified thought. “Why, do yours get soggy?”

“Obviously our genitals don’t get soggy! I sleep in that slime every night!”

“Heh, yeah.” You reach a hand forward, and Karkat takes it, and you both stand up together. Now you’re awkwardly _standing up_ next to each other waiting for him to take his shirt off. That’s progress, probably. “I can turn around, if it would help.”

Karkat starts pacing, cursing under his breath and tensing and relaxing his fists. “It’s my own damn fault! You’re my moirail! I should be able to do this! It’s my own fault for not being good enough to trust you.”

You hold out your arms to him, and he comes to you. You draw him in with one arm around the back of his neck (never his sides) and pap his face with your other hand. “Shoosh,” you say, “shoosh, shoosh, it’s okay, shoosh.”

Karkat squirms nervously in your arms, but he takes deep breaths and tries to calm himself. He reaches up his hand and shooshes the other side of his face himself, shuddering occasionally, and slowly seeming to quiet. He eventually starts licking at his hand with his long, rough, black tongue, and the wet rasping noises certainly make for one of the grosser nervous habits you’ve seen out of his species’ wide assortment, but it’s worth it for how he seems to melt into your arms. “Shoosh,” you keep saying, “shoosh.”

He looks up at you, tired and vulnerable and infinitely trusting. “It may not be what you expect,” he says, weakly.

“I don’t care what it is.” You caress his face slowly. “You’re my moirail.”

Karkat’s hands play nervously at the hem of his shirt. “Could you do it?”

“Anything,” you say. You grasp the hem of his shirt in your hands, stretching it away from him just a bit to make sure you don’t touch his sides (but careful not to stretch too much, that’s his favorite dick shirt). He lets out a hiss, then puts his arms up over his head in surrender. You pull his shirt completely off of him before you get a good look at —

“Are those gills? Oh my god, they are! You have gills!”

Karkat looks at you blankly.

You realize you’re starting to reach your hand forward and snatch it back. “Are they bad gills? I mean, do they not work?”

Karkat breathes heavily, and you can see the gills do gill things as he breathes. They certainly look like they should work.

You’re starting to get worried. You obviously aren’t understanding this. Gills seem like they would be pretty awesome, and it doesn’t look like there are any problems with them. They look big enough to work. And they’re actually very aesthetic, they’re a beautiful deep shade of —

“Red,” you say. The same as your blood. The same as his blood.

He looks at you, and you see him mouth the word back, and then again.

You look at him, and you don’t think. “I love you.”

“Red?” he croaks, his voice rising like a question, and then he’s crying, and you’re crying, and he’s pressed so warm against you, and you wrap your arms tight over his shoulders (never his sides, not yet). His face is buried in your shoulder and one horn is digging into your neck and his hands are scrabbling for purchase on your back. You’re pretty sure your back is bleeding, but you’re holding him tight, and with your bare chests pressed together you can feel his heartbeat, fast and hot and hard.

“Shoosh, shoosh”, you hear yourself say. Karkat makes keening noises into your shoulder, less sobbing and more of a constant pained whine, but his hands grasp against your back in fits. He keens, and you sob, and the world is soft and timeless and hot; you feel like Karkat’s pain has been trapped inside you for years, and is burning itself out through your tears. You’ve been here forever; you’ve been crying yourself clean forever; this is the worst you’ve ever felt, and the most wonderful release you can imagine.

He’s a mutant. His blood is _red_ , and you’ve _known_ that but you’ve never _understood_ , never _felt_ it, and the terrible certainty burns through you of every time Karkat has looked at his hands or his face or _himself_ in the mirror, every time he’s gotten a cut and had to hide it, every time he’s had fear and doubt and hatred from his own body. Does he shower with his eyes closed? Has he _ever_ , in his life, really looked at his gills?

He has ever really looked at his face?

You want to find a mirror and smash it, for how it’s hurt him.

 _You’re_ looking at his face, now, holding tight to his shoulders and he’s beautiful, he’s perfect, his face is beautiful and his eyes are beautiful, they’re beautiful now and they’ll only be more beautiful when they’re red, they’re his chicken-wing eyes and they are perfect. You’re saying this out loud and he’s gaping at you, soaking it up like a sponge, shaking and vulnerable and open, and you kiss his cheeks and you kiss his forehead and you kiss his eyelids when they flutter closed.

His red (perfect red) tears are salty but have a tang you don’t recognize, and he has never smelled more pale. He mumbles protests, “no, no, I’m not, no, I’m ugly” repeated like a chorus, and your heart breaks again but you keep talking, keep kissing and talking and crying and somehow it’s helping, you can feel it helping, you can feel _him_.

His protests quiet, and you quiet, and you’re tangled up on the floor together, and you’ve never felt more warm or safe or empty, just empty, all of your thoughts replaced with the quiet vulnerable warmth that is Karkat. You’re shaking a little. Your breathing seems impossibly loud until you realize that Karkat is breathing in time with you.

You both sit there, and you don’t know how long it takes. You realize that you’re playing with his hand, eventually. You’re struck with a crazy desire to play thumb wars, but this doesn’t seem like the time to try and explain the rules. You were kind of hoping there’d be more purring, to be honest, but he seems utterly wrecked. He’s too tired to purr.

You’re too tired to purr, too. You’re starting to come back to yourself, and you’re finding that “yourself” is pretty fucking exhausted, all things considered. You and Karkat should get to bed. Coon. Whatever. You think you should say something about this, but what comes out is, “I promised myself I’d massage your eyes.”

You are pretty sure that this is the creepiest thing that anyone has ever said, and you’ve met Terezi. But Karkat just snorts once and ignores it as the moirallegiance-inspired raving it clearly is. He looks at you, and he carefully avoids looking down at himself. “We’re disgusting.”

His comment snaps you back into awareness of your body, and now that you think about it you _may_ be just a little bit disgusting right now. More than a little bit. Okay, you’re basically covered in tears, snot, and blood.

Ewww. Who the hell thought shirtless cuddle-crying was a good idea?

You should get a shower before bed. Before coon. Before the pool. “I need to shower before I can get in the pool!” Karkat doesn’t understand why this is funny. Karkat is a total buzzkill who wouldn’t appreciate a good pool party if it bit him on the ass.

This _was_ a good pool party, though.

You almost hug again, but you back off as you both realize that you’re disgusting, and you awkwardly separate to take quick showers. You don’t even bother taking off your swimsuit, because pool party. In keeping with the meteor’s “everything for the trolls, nothing for the humans” theme, Karkat’s block of rooms includes _two_ bathrooms, so you don’t have to wait for him. Or deal with any questions about whether your “human nudity taboos” are still something you’re attached to right now.

You almost don’t know if you _would_ care at this point. Part of your brain is telling you that taking a shower with Karkat _couldn’t_ be weird, he’s comfortable, he’s safe. You _want_ to expose yourself to him, to show him you trust him, to show him _yourself_ , to show him that you accept his body. But then again the thought of showering with another guy, showering with another guy _on purpose_ , gives some human part of you a queasy, uncomfortable feeling low in your stomach.

You’re not an expert on human _or_ troll psychology, but there’s definitely something weird going on between you and Karkat. At first you thought it was just a sort of romantic friendship, and lately you’ve been accepting Karkat’s idea that it was fate, but things seem to be moving very, very fast. At least in the movies you’ve seen, pale romance develops more slowly than other forms; relationships like you and Karkat have now are an ideal, almost unrealistic, developed over months or years. You and Karkat have been going out for almost two weeks.

And tonight was, well, pretty intense. Very intense. Maybe the most intense thing you’ve ever done ever. You and Karkat lost control together in a way you’ve only seen _hints_ of in the movies.

Then again, _humans_ in a relationship do things you don’t see in movies, don’t they? At least not in respectable movies.

You’re vaguely aware that pale pornography exists, but Karkat has never offered to watch any, and you’ve never asked. (Thanks to Dave’s copy of “Sultry Pale Handjobs 3”, you are also now aware that ambiguously pale/flushed porn exists. Hopefully that’s more of a specialty item). You really haven’t given pale porn much thought beyond “wow, trolls, huh?” Maybe you should have been more interested in what happens in a mature moirallegiance.

Your mental Rose tells you that regardless of species and quadrant, watching pornography is probably not a good way to develop reasonable expectations about a relationship. You counter that it’s better than having literally no idea what’s happening, and anyway, you’re curious about how you would feel, watching it with Karkat. Intellectually curious. For important science knowledge reasons. Shut up, mental Rose.

So yeah, something weird is definitely going on. He said trolls have a lot of non-verbal cues; maybe humans are affected by troll pheromones after all? That might explain the thing with Dave, too. It wouldn’t explain why Karkat is so head-over-heels back for you, though. You’re pretty sure you haven’t been emitting any human moirail pheromones. You like to think you would know.

But Karkat has been hurting so much, and for so long. Under his defenses he’s the most sensitive person you’ve ever met. Maybe he’s just been waiting for someone he could trust.

Maybe he’s been waiting for you his entire life.

Okay, that is probably the most romantic thought you’ve ever had in your life, and you can feel yourself blushing fiercely, but right now what he’s waiting for is for you to get out of the shower. You give your head and shoulders another scrub with your hands to make sure you’re clean and turn off the shower. You don’t dry off (because pool party), and by the time you get back to his respite block you’re starting to get cold.

Karkat is in the block waiting for you, shirtless again and wearing the same sweatpants, hunched over just a little bit. His arms just happen to be covering his gills, and you know he’s still defensive but you don’t _care_ because you understand now, you know what the problems are and you both know that you’ll get through it together.

When he sees you, he’s the one to walk up to _you_ and slip his arm around you. “I guess your human pool parties aren’t completely terrible.”

“This wasn’t really a — never mind, sure, Karkat, it was great.” You’re sure he knows that a “pool party” isn’t just “take your shirts off, throw swimming supplies in a pile, and have a feelings jam”. At some point you’ll have to throw him a real pool party, with a real pool somehow. Maybe you’ll even invite other people, if you’re feeling generous. “But that reminds me, I need supplies from the pile!”

“Heap. We left the room and came back, it’s just a heap now.”

“Heap, sorry.” You don’t roll your eyes even a little bit, which is proof that you’re in love. You walk to the heap, grin, and proceed to deck yourself out in your Breath-themed snorkel, face mask, water wings, and flippers. You are _ready_ for this recuperacoon. You turn around and spread your arms proudly.

Karkat is not appropriately impressed. “What by all the many-tentacled gods do you think you’re wearing? Do you seriously think you need a breathing tube to sleep? Do you think _I_ use a breathing tube to sleep? Do you see a breathing tube? Sopor slime is aerated! You can breathe it!”

“Maybe _you_ can breathe it. I don’t want the first time I sleep with my moirail to be interrupted by waking up thinking I’m drowning. We can practice my sopor breathing later.”

Karkat is unable to counter your romantic declaration, just as you’d planned. He grumbles under his breath again, and waits for you at the entrance to his ‘coon.

You stop him with a hand on his shoulder. “Are you going to sleep wearing sweatpants?”

“These are ‘coon pants, I always sleep in these. They don’t absorb sopor.”

That makes sense. Trolls would have clothing designed for sleeping in sopor. His pants are probably like your swimsuit. “Okay, but one last thing.” You look him in the eyes, and let yourself be serious. “Karkat, I need you to know that I’m okay with you hate-dating my boyfriend. If that’s what he wants.”

Karkat swallows, searching your face. “Okay? Okay. Good. Thanks. Thank you. Good. You’d better be.”

You reach a hand into the sopor slime, and pull out a large glob. Your entire hand tingles. “But I need you to _know_ that. Emotionally.”

Karkat watches you in confusion. “And?”

You grin. “And that’s why I can’t let you go to sleep without any dicks.” You reach slowly for his chest, and he doesn’t move. You spread sopor slime onto his smooth, rubbery chest with your finger, drawing a shaft and two balls and adding an elaborate firework of sopor jizz. You don’t think you can manage the word “property”, but you settle for labeling his stomach “Dave’s”.

He’s been watching this, enraptured, the entire time, and you feel a thrill in knowing that he’s looking at himself. You wonder how long it’s been since he’s looked for even this long. You have a lot of chicken-wing high fives to make up for.

By the end of your writing, his chest and stomach are vibrating with the deep, comforting purr you were waiting for. The vibrations throw little speckles of “Dave’s” sopor jizz onto your arms. You smile.

You don’t remember later how you fall asleep; the sopor must have taken you down fast. But you remember that you go into the recuperacoon together, holding hands.

You’re woken the next morning by the sound of Karkat squelching across the room. Those were not special ‘coon pants. They were sweatpants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really feel like there was a John/Dave plotline around here somewhere....


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose finally has time to figure out what everyone has been up to, and is displeased. A lengthy breakfast turns into a lengthier strategy meeting. Jade stands between Karkat and Dave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose POV.

You’ve done it. Yesterday you finished the last piece of stabilizing the timeline, with the help of Sollux, Aradia, and for some reason, Feferi. You hadn’t realized that Feferi was helping until near the end, and frankly you’re not about to ask her exactly what bargains she made to get this done. You’ve always known what _you_ had to do, and you did it.

Last night, you were finally able to relax, to spend some personal time with Kanaya, and to get a glorious ten and a half hours of sleep. You feel truly rested for the first time in weeks. And based on your conversation with Karkat this morning, there wasn’t a single murder during the twelve hours you had Pesterchum disabled, despite how hard everyone has obviously been trying.

You’re the first to arrive for breakfast this morning. If Karkat and John are hoping to outmaneuver you, they may wish to reconsider posting their sleep schedules as public policy. You begin sifting through the huge and unappetizing variety of alchemized cereals your group’s two “leaders” have produced. Apparently they have decided that the secret to group dynamics is a healthy breakfast.

You quickly tire of trying to determine whether Sburb intended “Bodacious Chocolate Battle Clusters” to be a breakfast cereal or a single-use combat item. You sift through possible futures in your head, letting your visions overlay the boxes in front of you. Your instincts tell you that trying to squeeze positive outcomes out of completely inconsequential decisions is expensive, and sometimes dangerous, so you look for whatever will have the smallest effect on your future, positive or negative.

You settle on an unoffensive-looking granola mix that you think you may actually recognize from Earth. It doesn’t look like it’s going to give you any buffs, boosts, penalties, or status ailments whatsoever. The future of the universe is completely unaffected by whether you eat this cereal. It is truly the perfect breakfast.

Karkat is the first other person to arrive. He grunts at you and begins re-arranging boxes of cereal; you haven’t bothered trying to understand the order, but he’s always annoyed to find it disrupted. You think he may be arranging them by flavor, but if so trolls must have slightly different tongues than humans. Well, they certainly have _different_ tongues, but, well, that’s a personal line of thought you’ll explore more thoroughly later.

John arrives about forty-five seconds after Karkat. They have apparently decided that this is long enough that they can pretend they didn’t come in together. You were pretty sure you knew what was up when Karkat avoided the question of exactly where John was when you talked to him on Pesterchum this morning; your suspicions are nicely confirmed by their exaggerated looks of surprise at seeing each other.

Once he finishes organizing the cereals, Karkat ignores them completely, instead getting a plate of what looks disturbingly like raw bacon from the thermal hull. John puts a bowl of cereal and the milk next to Karkat (he’s one of those barbarians who has to bring the entire gallon over to the table). Before he has a chance to sit down, you look over at him and touch your hair behind your ear. “You have sopor slime in your hair.”

John grimaces and paws at his hair. “Geez, really? I shampooed three ti—“. He glances guiltily at Karkat and looks back to you. “I don’t really have sopor slime in my hair, do I?”

“If you used human shampoo, then probably you do. Kanaya has a shampoo that works well on human hair; you should ask her for the captchalogue code. That is, if you’re expecting to need it again.” You’ve been confused by the apparent success of John and Karkat’s moirallegiance; lately you’ve taken to leaving them little set-up lines to declare their undying paleness for each other. They take the opportunity every time, no matter how sappy, and it doesn’t sound like John is even _half_ kidding any more.

You’ve been looking forward to finally having some time to give their relationship the critical scrutiny it deserves, and that’s why it’s so annoying when Dave saunters in before either John or Karkat rises to your bait. You’d never admit to believing Dave about this, but sometimes it seems like being the Knight of Time really _has_ given him the power to make dramatic entrances. Either that or he listens in doorways.

The dining room has entrances in every wall, and Dave enters behind John and Karkat, so you’re the first one to see that he’s wearing an utterly ridiculous pair of enormous bright red goggles with “hypnosis” swirls on them. Did he alchemize novelty goggles entirely to gloat? Is he _trying_ to make Karkat angrier? Karkat seemed one step short of violence earlier, and you have no idea how he’ll respond to this.

You’re too busy sifting through possible futures to hear John and Karkat’s “pale-romantic” declarations for each other. Are Dave and Karkat about to kill each other? Predicting personal interactions isn’t your strength. You wish Terezi were here. If they were going to kill each other Terezi would be here, right?

You look forward, Seeing Dave and Karkat’s future. There is anger, jealousy, and hatred. John is prominent, but hardly the only point of contention. You see fights, and competitiveness, and violence; you race forward, race sideways, dreading what you’ll find and trying to find some path that doesn’t lead to —

Oh my.

You only realize how hard you’re laughing when you make a loud and inelegant snorting sound and start to choke on your granola. All three of them turn to you, and you wave a hand towards Dave, trying to regain your breathing. John groans when he sees Dave’s red hypno-spiral goggles, and you think he’s about to say something like “Dude, isn’t that kind of mean?”, but before he has a chance Karkat is standing up and growling.

You’ve only heard trolls growl like this in combat, and rarely then. Even with your visions of the future, you have to fight against your instincts, which say that you should be standing up and helping Dave. John jumps up, starts to position himself between Dave and Karkat, then remembers himself and backs away, frowning and looking anxiously between them.

Your few conversations with Kanaya about ashen romance have not been enough to tell you exactly what you _can_ do, or how far a fight has to go before you’re allowed to intervene “platonically”. Karkat’s intensive course of romantic comedy study doesn’t appear to have left John any better prepared. You should talk with Kanaya later about how conflicting pale/ashen scenarios are typically addressed, and about whether the sibling/ashen conflict you’re currently experiencing is similar.

Dave flinches back instinctively at the growl, but then his face flashes with more hatred and anger than you’ve ever seen from him. Is he _already_ in hate? Why? How? You hadn’t been entirely shocked to see that he might be in a black relationship in the future, but you had assumed it would be more distant. Troll relationships aren’t something that humans should be so able to do!

Your relationship with Kanaya has progressed almost according to what you would expect would be a “normal” course, given your clearly abnormal circumstances. It has moved quickly, yes, but you had ascribed that to the emotional stresses you’ve all been under. But between John’s moiralleigance and Dave’s budding kismesissitude, either human psychology has been _very_ misguided or there are shenanigans afoot. In your role as the battlefield-medic equivalent to the group’s psychotherapist, you would be remiss not to investigate.

Dave regains his composure quickly, and to a less practiced eye he might seem unaffected. That is to say, he might have fooled almost anyone except the three people actually in the room. (Or Terezi, whose absence you still keenly regret.) He gives a smug, practiced half-smile. “Hey Vantas, almost didn’t see you there. How’s tricks?”

Dave isn’t particularly loud, but Karkat’s growl stops immediately as soon as he starts talking. Karkat’s reply starts unusually quiet, but quickly gains volume. “What portion of your disease-addled thinkpan led you to believe that _gloating_ about your perverted ocular disease is anything I would _tolerate_?! Take those off!”

Dave shrugs. “Okay.” He reaches up for his goggles. You demurely take this moment to look down, examining your bowl of cereal in detail. You hear Karkat hiss.

“Dave,” warns John.

“Whoops, looks like there’s a veto, sorry. We’ll have to put it on the table for next time the legislature’s in town.” When you happen to look up again, Dave is working through the breakfast cereals, filling a large mixing bowl with every cereal he can find with “Apple” in the name. John quickly sits back down next to Karkat, happening to brush a hand along Karkat’s arm as he does. Karkat leans in to the contact just a bit and his eyes focus on John instead of Dave; then he snarls under his breath and sets in to his meat with renewed ferocity.

Dave returns to the table with the mixing bowl, a potato masher, and a package of Cinnamon Chocolate Breakfast-Compatible Doritos. You speculate that these exist as an alchemization possibility entirely for the inevitable purpose of enabling his current attention-grabbing breakfast shenanigans. This game seems perfectly happy to slap Dave’s “ironic” aesthetic on everything he touches.

Dave begins delicately adding a layer of Doritos on top of his apple cereal mixture, taking elaborate care with where he positions the identical chips on top of his haphazard mixture of cereals. John blanches. “Were there not any cereals you liked? We’ve alchemized a lot.”

“You guys are great, you’ve given me a lot to work with. Enough to make this breakfast masterpiece shine.” Dave finishes the arrangement and sits back to look at it with a critical eye. He moves one Dorito to an imperceptibly different position. You’re not sure whether he’s extending the process for attention or because he’s honestly dreading having to eat the result.

You can see John trying to phrase a reproach in his head. Are they seriously going to talk about breakfast cereals? Idiocy, thy name is teenage boys. You need to intervene. You can’t allow your respect for alien romance to outweigh your desire to watch Dave squirm. “I suppose I should congratulate you, Dave.”

You expect that Dave will deflect, unless perhaps Karkat intervenes. It would hardly be sporting to use the powers of prophecy in a simple conversational game; at least, not while you hold all the cards. Your sportsmanship is why you’re able to be surprised by John breaking in. “Hey, I’m not just a piece of meat, you know! Don’t I deserve congratulations too?”

His response is flippant; more flippant than it should be. Romance is important to him; Dave is important to him; he’s occasionally strong-headed but he’s hardly stupid, and he shouldn’t believe that you’re going to send him and Dave off into the sunset with a happy wave. Damn. Your pesterchum conversation with Karkat this morning solidified Kanaya’s suspicions: John isn’t taking this seriously.

You mentally pencil in a private appointment with Dave, immediately after breakfast. For now, the move you had planned to play against Dave will work equally well here. “Why, John, did you get new goggles too?” You look at John’s face pointedly, then falter. “Actually, why is there a red oval around your eyes? _Did_ you get new goggles?” There is nothing so stupid that your friends will not resort to it to distract you.

Karkat puts his hand on John’s forearm and gives you his best “look what fuckers I have to tolerate” frown. “Sopor phobia is just one of the many symptoms of the pustulent mass of oozing tumors that’s taken up parasitic residence in whatever used to be John’s human thinkpan and is operating his corpse like a puppet —“

“Hey!” interrupts John. “This mass of tumors is driving your moirail! If you don’t like it I swear to god I will turn this shambling undead corpse around, I don’t even care.” He waves a faceplate and snorkel proudly at you, then returns them to his sylladex.

“Anyway, _whatever_ may be driving is something I apparently feel _entirely unwarranted_ fondness for, and so I _tolerantly_ allowed him to use his human breathing tube and facial air/water separation plate overnight. And would you look at that, he didn’t have the straps adjusted right! Why would you bother making sure you’re comfortable before diving into a pool of powerful soporifics?”

Dave’s face is empty, but he begins stabbing the Dorito/cereal mixture with the potato masher. “So you guys finally did the do, huh? Went the full sex? Consummated your bro-marriage in the back seat of Karkat’s dad’s ’76 recuperacoon? That’s great, dudes, congratulations, what took you so long? Your mother and I were starting to worry you were gay, oops, straight, oops, pale-straight. When’s the ceremony? Need someone to tie cans to the back of Karkat, because I am totally your guy for that, I will best man the fuck out of this wedding, just watch me, we need a bachelor party up-ins like holla.”

John swallows and looks down at the table. “I don’t know? I think maybe we did.”

Karkat looks at John in horror. “You _think_ we did? You don’t _know_ if you got laid? What the fuck are you _expecting_ from me? Was it not — oh god it wasn’t — your species doesn’t —“ Karkat crumples in on himself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it wasn’t good for you, I’m sorry, we don’t have to, I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry.”

John is out of his chair in an instant. “No, no, no, no!” He kisses Karkat’s face quickly and lightly, starting at the forehead and moving down the left side of the face to focus on Karkat’s jawline. “I just didn’t know the words, I’m sorry, I’m good, we’re good, I love you, we’re good, it’s okay, we’re good.” One of John’s hands pats the opposite side of Karkat’s jaw; John’s other hand cradles the back of Karkat’s neck. Karkat melts _up_ against him, clinging to John and standing up as John straightens. They cling to each other as John mutters reassurances.

You look at Dave, and his face is blank — not in the carefully cultivated mask he always attempts, but honestly emotionally blank. Dave has checked out. John and Karkat slowly calm down.

You feel rather out of your depth here. John and Dave are acting _strangely_. You aren’t _sure_ that Karkat is acting strangely by troll standards, but you have trouble imagining that the speed and depth of his attachment to John are normal. You were prepared to dismiss John’s role in the moirallegiance as a strong male friendship with romantic play-acting and occasional cuddling; you hadn’t expected him to start kissing Karkat’s face at the breakfast table.

You want to help, but you don’t understand what’s happening, so you can’t. When Jade walks in you feel like you’re being thrown a life-line. “Oh no, what’s wrong?” she asks immediately. You feel jealous, and keenly aware of the distance you surround yourself with. Jade doesn’t need to _study_ the situation before she helps her friends.

Dave’s voice is casual, but he’s too occupied with pouring milk into his cereal-and-Doritos for his face to be visible, and you doubt that’s a coincidence. “They did the do, but Karkat didn’t make it special enough for John.”

Jade and John both look moderately annoyed at Dave, but Karkat whirls at him and advances on his seat. “At least I’m not so wretched that my only possible hope of filling a quadrant is mind control!!” An angry snarl underlies his voice (do their voice boxes have multiple compartments?). Dave stands, fingers twitching; neither of them have drawn weapons yet, but you’re not sure how long that will stay true.

You’re stuck once again trying to navigate the tricky mental waters of ashen romance; John looks like he can’t decide whether to be annoyed or exasperated; and that’s when Jade steps between them and whaps them both firmly on the head, a newspaper in each hand. “Hey nooklumps! No fights during breakfast!”

Karkat bristles, turning towards Jade and hunching his shoulders up to appear larger. He growls, low and deep. She stares back, unimpressed, testing the weight of the newspaper in her hand. He stares at the newspaper as it bobs up and down slightly, then his growl stutters down. He slumps back, arms falling out of a fighting position; he pauses for a moment with his head tilted up a little, exposing his neck fractionally, his eyes half-closed. Then he sits down and tears into his meat again, watching Jade carefully.

Dave has used this time to occupy himself with eating his “cereal”. John looks at you and rolls his eyes. “See what I have to put up with, Rose? Being so popular is hard.” He gives an exaggerated pout and goes back to eating.

Once again his response seems to have completely missed the seriousness of the situation. You decide to test him further. “It must be very intimidating, dating someone as impressive as Dave Strider.”

“Oh no, not you too, Rose!” John waves a hand dismissively. “It’s bad enough when Jade does it. Dave is _not cool_ , he is the opposite of cool, he’s a huge dork who only thinks he’s cool because he doesn’t realize what a terrible nerd he is.”

You nod once. “It’s nice to see that you’re still with us, John.”

“Hey guys, right here, you know,” says Dave.

John laughs, turning to Dave. “You know what I mean, dude. You’re always trying to act really cool, and that’s great, but you know we’re all your friends. You don’t have to prove yourself all the time. It’s just really sweet that you keep trying so hard to be what you think everyone wants, even when we know you’re vulner—“ John breaks off, suddenly fascinated by his breakfast. “Wow, sorry, I’m getting a little weird there, huh?”

“Whatever,” says Dave flatly, engrossed in his own food.

Jade has been quiet, placidly getting herself a bowl of cereal; John and Dave don’t seem to recognize this as a danger sign. Karkat’s sullen glaring at Dave is occasionally broken by thoughtful looks towards Jade, but you think danger isn’t exactly what’s on his mind, either. She pulls up a chair (which had previously been entirely across the room), sits between John and Dave (who you thought were sitting next to each other), and props her head up on her elbow, giving John a friendly smile. “So you and Dave are dating now?”

John looks over at Dave, blushes, and looks down. “Yeah, but it’s not a big deal, it’s just — we’re trying it, you know? I thought it would make things a lot simpler, and he’s been my best friend for a while, and we’re really happy.” By the end of this he is grinning broadly.

Jade smiles sweetly at him and puts a sisterly hand on his shoulder. “That sounds wonderful! Congratulations! I knew you were worried about him, but when we talked yesterday it almost sounded like you didn’t have feelings for him. It’s so great that you realized you did!” You remind yourself again that if someone were likely to die, Terezi would almost certainly be here.

Karkat says something, gesturing at Dave but watching Jade’s face. Jade doesn’t take her eyes off of John, but Karkat’s voice sounds quiet to you, as if he were a great distance away. There’s no sign that John hears him at all. Karkat yells something you can almost make out at Jade, then does the closed-eyes upturned-head thing again; the corners of his mouth are turned up in something you would almost call a smile.

You wonder for an insane moment whether you should be jealous that you have only filled one quadrant. You will simply have to console yourself with having an intelligent, beautiful, elegant and deadly vampire alien girlfriend. And with having saved the universe recently. You’re not a troll, but you suspect that saving the universe should make you more desirable in any quadrant.

John beams proudly at Jade. “I figured out a really great way around that! When you told me about his eye curse, I realized I could ask him to help me like him the same way he likes me!” He looks over at Dave, who you note is quicker on the uptake than Karkat, because Dave has given up on pretending to like his breakfast and is simply shoveling it into his mouth as quickly as possible. John frowns. “Dave, don’t be gross.”

Dave slows down and pats at his face with a napkin. “Sorry babe!” John’s face flushes, and he looks back to Jade. Dave speeds up again as soon as John turns away.

You should really try to forestall possible misunderstandings. “Terezi spoke with them both, and it was entirely John’s idea.”

John chuckles and looks to you. “Actually, it was something that Jade said that gave me the idea. She said that, when you take all of the drama out of it, people like being attracted to other people, so if you could be attracted to more people it would be better for you.”

Jade frowns. “That’s not _exactly_ what — well, the important thing is, you’re happy, right? And you and Karkat are doing well?”

John turns to look at Karkat; their hands find each other without any evidence of conscious attention from either party. Karkat’s voice sounds normal again. “We’re fantastic, walking on flutterbugs and shitting baby mewbeasts, thanks for asking. Now get out of my pale quadrant, if you think I’m that kinky on a first da—“ Karkat’s voice cuts out abruptly, though he doesn’t stop talking.

John rolls his eyes and turns back to Jade, keeping one of Karkat’s hands in his own. “Jade, come on.”

“You know how he is,” says Jade. “But you stayed with Karkat last night? Doesn’t that seem a bit premature?”

“No,” says John, confidently and immediately. Then he actually thinks about it. “Well, maybe it was a little on the early side, and it was pretty intense, I guess? But I had been kind of a dick earlier, with not telling Karkat about what Dave and I were going to do, and I needed him to know how important he was to me.”

Jade nods sympathetically. “It can be intoxicating, huh? It’s pretty different from the human experience.”

John nods along, then stops. “Wait, what? Are you — do you have a moirail?” This saves you from having to ask the same question.

Jade shrugs. “Not anything formal, no.”

Dave breaks in. “Okay, this troll romance shit is weird as fuck. Look at cuddle-dee and cuddle-dumber over there, holding hands.”

Jade sticks her tongue out at him. “Shut up, you. You’re just jealous. And really, black romance is a lot harder to get used to than pale. At least, for me.”

The table is silent for a moment. Finally John, sounding betrayed, says “I thought you were busy helping with Rose all week! I’ve barely seen you!”

You say, “No, we only needed her the first day. I assumed she’d been with all of you.”

Jade seems unfazed by the attention. “Well, John, it sounds like you’re doing great, but as your _older_ and _wiser_ sister —“

“— by four months!”

“—as your much _older_ and much _wiser_ sister, you know I’ll have to take you aside for a bit of a talk after breakfast, okay? Just to make sure you aren’t going to do anything stupid.”

John’s smile falters. “Aren’t you supposed to talk to the people I’m _dating_? Well, person I’m dating, usually. And they’ve practically been killing each _other_ over me!”

Jade turns to look at Dave. Opaque goggles should be an insurmountable advantage in any staring contest, but he quickly tilts his head down, holding up both hands in obvious surrender. Then she turns to Karkat, who bares his throat like he’s desperate to win an audition for a role in a pornographic vampire film.

That was simply the first image that happened to come to mind.

You wonder for a moment whether Karkat’s mutation would make him unsuitable as food for a rainbow drinker. If his blood is essentially human, then it wouldn’t.

You look at Karkat’s neck and wonder for a longer moment about whether Karkat and Kanaya might, in the name of advancing interspecies medical knowledge, let you watch.

When your attention resumes, Dave is explaining the goggles to Jade. You think he might be hoping that a clear, succinct, casual explanation will rile Karkat, but Karkat actually seems slightly mollified to learn that the goggles were Terezi’s idea and designed to prevent accidental exposure. John was upset that Dave wouldn’t be wearing the sunglasses any more, but he seems relieved by Dave’s reassurances that they could make “an awesome sunglasses shrine together to celebrate our sweet bro-ship”.

John corrects this softly to “relationship”, and then they make mushy eyes at each other. You, Jade, and Karkat exchange nauseated looks while they continue. Things seem almost normal again, the main difference being that Dave and John’s awkward flirting isn’t tinged by oblivious good humor on one side or wistful detachment on the other.

In fact, they seem hesitant, inexperienced, and even scared, but they seem happy. Dave doesn’t believe it’s real yet, but every minute it continues he seems to relax a little. John has the air of someone discovering wonders they had never imagined in a place they had never thought to look.

Damn. They _would_ be happy. Dave is clearly doing this to spite you.

By the time John returns to eating his cereal, it has gone soggy. He seems more exasperated than flattered when Karkat and Dave argue over who can get him more. John gets another bowl of cereal for himself. Karkat and Dave have each left themself a token amount of food, so that they can pick at it occasionally and still be “eating breakfast”.

Jade turns to you. “So how are you, Rose?”

You spread your hands over your empty bowl of cereal. (You feel no need to pretend to be eating in order to stay at the table). “I’m doing remarkably well. Things have calmed down in stabilizing the universe, and I was able to get a full night of sleep for the first time in weeks.” You gesture at the three boys. “Perhaps silencing my pesterchum alerts was partially responsible for that.”

“Yeah, Lalonde,” says Karkat, “that was definitely helpful. A+ for teamwork. It was the perfect night for you to take a vacation.”

“Perhaps,” you say, “you should think of it not as a vacation but as more of a honeymoon. I wanted to enjoy the company of the universe I help stabilize. I’ll note that I did leave clear instructions with someone I trusted to awaken me if the universe was in danger.”

Dave has begun building a tower out of unused silverware. “You’re really not going to let that whole ‘creating the universe’ thing go, are you?”

“I don’t think I should, no.”

John smiles at you. “We really do appreciate you creating the universe, Rose!”

“Thank you, John. That’s very kind of you to say. You are quite the gentleman.”

John sticks his tongue out at Dave and Karkat.

You sigh. “On that note, I suppose I should talk with you all more clearly about what to expect for the remainder of existence.” You look around. “I had hoped more of the trolls would be in attendance, to save me the trouble of having to explain this more than once.” Not for the first time, you wish there were someone in your group capable of writing a memo which actually conveyed information.

John looks glum. “I _know_ we’ll find a cereal they like soon.”

Karkat gestures at his plate. “We’re meat-eaters, rotsponge! And the one thing you won’t let me alchemize the cereal with is _meat_!”

“That’s because meat cereal would be disgusting, Karkat,” says John. “We’ve been over this. I have to eat at this table too.”

“Well you made one that was fine, what about —“

“That was a Betty Crocker cereal!” says John.

You have heard about the Breakfast Cereal Problem enough times that you occasionally consider writing a paper on its appropriateness as a metaphor for the difficulties in interspecies communication. Your motivation to write it has been lacking, however, because even if there ever were an appropriate venue, it has almost certainly been destroyed.

You hope the consorts have a university in the areas you were able to save.

Dave preempts further cereal discussion by turning to you. “Look, we know what’s up, okay? The game was about creating a universe, and we’ve basically bought it on that. Not eligible for prizes, thanks for playing.”

“Rather than attempting to create a _new_ universe,” you say, “we’ve been focusing on stabilizing what we currently have. The structure of doomed timelines has always been one of the vaguest and most difficult to understand aspects of the entire cosmology, and we’ve lost a lot in the stabilization process. Fortunately, Jade and Kanaya’s rather daring session merging put us in the position of having a lot of raw material to work with.”

John looks puzzled. “Raw material? You mean grist?”

“No,” says Jade, “she means the lands.”

Karkat idly throws a piece of meat at Dave’s silverware tower, but Jade notices, and the piece somehow hits Karkat in the back of his own neck. Dave makes a rather obscene gesture at Karkat, at which point the section of the table containing his tower mysteriously tilts, and the tower falls over.

You continue regardless. “Yes, we’ve been focusing on making one stable world out of the sixteen lands. We’ve managed to create a patchwork, saving some part of each land. Together, they cover the inside surface of a spherical bubble, with a sun and moon in the middle.” John picks the piece of meat off of the back of Karkat’s neck, sniffs at it, and grimaces. He then palms it, proudly showing his empty hands around the table.

Karkat hasn’t _seemed_ to be paying very close attention, but you’re not surprised when he’s the one to ask the question you’re dreading. “So if we’re inside of a bubble, then what’s outside?”

The room is quiet. You close your eyes for a moment. You had considered lying about this. You discussed the possibility with Sollux and Aradia. But you had decided to tell the truth. “We don’t know.” You move your hand in awkward circles as if feeling the air for answers. “To the extent that it is still a meaningful concept, we may, in some technical sense, be dead.”

The room waits patiently, worried, as if you might somehow be about to deliver even worse news. Eventually Dave speaks up. “And?”

Perhaps they are in shock. “We may be dead,” you say again. “We’re in a hastily-modified dream bubble. We can’t contact anyone except ourselves, any descendants we may have, and anyone who happens to float through. We’re dead. We’re technically dead, and I don’t know why our eyes haven’t all gone white but they might as well have, because we’re dead.” You note that your voice is raised, and that you are for some reason laughing.

Karkat looks at John in confusion. “Did she really not know? Or is there some kind of human tradition I’ve missed of repeating the most depressing things you can think of, starting the moment you think breakfast has gone on too long? Is that how you discourage slow eaters on your planet?”

“Rose,” says John gently. “We had kind of figured that out.”

“So, big scary monsters outside?” asks Dave. “Don’t pass Go, don’t collect $200, go straight to mindfuck junction? Is that what happens if we delve too greedily and too deep?”

For once you’re glad to have something stupid to focus on. “Really? Lord of the Rings?”

“Nah,” says Dave, “’sfrom Minecraft.”

John rolls his eyes. “How did anyone ever believe that you were not a nerd?”

“My natural charm,” says Dave. John shakes his head disbelievingly. Apparently not even magic is enough to make this line successful.

Jade has been visibly thinking about things. “You said there was a sun and a moon both in the middle? Is there a day/night cycle? And how?”

“There is,” you say, “but we’re not exactly sure how it works. Day and night seem to progress around the sphere.”

“I knew it,” says Dave, “time zones are a universal scourge. Okay, day/night I can do, but we are _not_ doing Daylight Savings Time.”

“Agreed,” you say, “nor Daylight Saving Time.”

“Saving time? Just one saving?”

“The hyphen which would have made it grammatically correct was omitted by statute. That world could not end fast enough.” John and Jade make nervous chuckling noises at this. It may have been a few years too early for that joke.

Karkat stands up and begins pacing, waving his hands and talking almost to himself. “So what are our resources here? We have a giant flying meteor full of hallway after metal fucking hallway, some random bits and pieces we cut out of our lands, and sixteen clueless Sgrub rejects who can’t distract themselves from sloppy interspecies make-outs long enough to get anything done. Okay. Okay, I can do this. I can do this because I’m amazing, and I’ve done better with less. I got twelve disfunctional cullbait rejects almost all of the way through Sgrub, I got all of us alive to this meteor, and I can damn well figure out how to settle the inside of some weakslime bubble. John, you’re my second-in-command.”

You clear your throat indelicately. “Excuse me, but I don’t know that you have any room to talk about being too busy with your relationships to get anything done. How many universes have you stabilized this week, approximately? Feel free to round up to the nearest whole number.”

“Yeah,” says Dave, “plus you were looking pretty sloppy when John was interspecies making-out all over your ugly grey face.”

You’re afraid they’re going to get started again, but Jade preempts this with “Awwwwwwww, did I miss face-kissing? I bet it was adorable!”

“It was,” you say, “and you came in just a minute too late.”

John looks embarrassed. Karkat looks briefly embarrassed too, but converts it promptly into self-righteousness. “Well maybe if you were on time for breakfast, you wouldn’t miss things!”

John suddenly looks surprised and worried in Dave’s direction. When Jade turns around to look, John throws the piece of breakfast meat into her hair. Jade sighs, and the meat reappears several feet above his cereal bowl. A quick gust of wind saves it from falling into John’s cereal, and it lands neatly balanced on the rim of your bowl.

You pick up the meat. “Thank you.” You sniff at it, daintily take a bite, and chew, doing your best to look thoughtful instead of utterly disgusted. You secure as much of it as you can in your cheek and unfortunately swallow the rest. “I’m afraid it’s not quite to my taste, though.” You hold up the remainder. “John? Jade? Dave?” They all wave it off in disgusted awe. You shrug, and replace the meat on the table.

“Anyway, Rose,” says John, “it’s hardly fair for you to criticize us for not helping, when you told us that if we helped then the universe would literally end.” While he’s speaking, you wipe at your mouth with a napkin, taking the opportunity to rid yourself of the unswallowed meat.

Karkat returns to pacing. “We still need to plan what we’re going to do!”

You start talking before he has a chance to continue. “Allow me to explain what we need to do, and then you and John can organize it to your hearts’ content. We need to find a good place to settle, which is going to involve finding a large, flat _unoccupied_ area surrounded by areas that are occupied or otherwise useful to us. Most of us will stay in the meteor until we’ve found an appropriate area.”

Karkat looks at you. “What? Can’t we just go down ourselves? Half of us can fly.” He looks at Jade. “Or teleport.”

“The exploration will be done in person, but to truly start a civilization, we will need the ectobiology machines in the lab. The lab itself is not designed to support larger populations, but luckily the machines are very sturdy, and the lab seems designed to withstand certain types of forces.” You try not to grin, and fail. This is the best part of the plan.

Dave is looking at you in horror. “Holy shit. I see where this is going. No. Fuck no.”

Karkat looks between you and Dave. “What the fuck are we talking about?”

Jade is smiling like it’s Christmas. “Oh my god, Rose! You’re going to crash the meteor into the planet!! That’s awesome!!!”

“Vuzzzzzzzhhhhhuhh?” says Karkat, clearly not willing to be silent even while completely speechless. “You…the….” Eventually, he looks to John. “How the fuck has your species survived without moirails?”

John looks at him with a small smile. “I don’t know.”

Dave begins clutching at his throat and making vomiting noises, but he stops when Jade glares at him.

“Hey bros, just came for the motherfucking eating — oh shit! You got those choco bomb things!” Gamzee saunters in and begins helping himself to a bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs.

John beams. “I was so happy when we alchemized those! You know, they’re from Calvi—“

“Yes,” Karkat interrupts, “you’ve told us.”

Gamzee sits down at the table, then looks at Dave and sees the goggles. “Hey, those are some bitch-tits glasses you got there! Is that what you’re motherfucking usually all up to wearing?”

Karkat’s hands ball into fists, but then he looks thoughtful. He starts talking with a cheerful tone. “Gamzee, hey, you haven’t heard! Strider was flushed for John here, but John was naturally a human monosexual, who could only like females. But then Strider found out that he didn’t need to worry about that, because he had some sort of hypnosis bullshit from the game! Isn’t it romantic?” He watches Gamzee’s face, presumably hoping for some disapproval, or at least understanding.

Gamzee listens placidly, eating his cereal. Jade is frowning, but doesn’t intervene. Dave is holding the potato masher up to the light, apparently engrossed in studying it. Meanwhile, John is smiling happily, seemingly unconcerned. “It really _is_ romantic, though! Dave and I were like star-crossed lovers, separated only by Dave’s lack of magic powers. No, wait, by the shades! By the shades that I myself gave him! Oh, Gamzee, it was such a tragic story!”

Gamzee looks wide-eyed at John. “Oh no, man! What happened at the end?”

John looks at Dave and smiles. “He hypnotized me, and now I like him! And also he has to wear really stupid-looking goggles. Dave, those are incredibly distracting. If you really have to wear them, can’t you just, I don’t know, make me like them?”

You catch Dave’s eye and raise a finger, preparing to speak. Karkat seems too surprised to even growl. But Dave shakes his head. “Sorry, John, no can do. If I have to deal with the goggles looking stupid, you have to deal with the goggles looking stupid.” John pouts at this; everyone else relaxes a little. Except Gamzee, who is occupied with his cereal.

Karkat stops pacing, sighs, and slumps into his seat next to John, who reaches over and takes one of his hands. Everyone except Gamzee is done eating, but you all still have to discuss your plans. John smiles at Karkat, then looks towards Dave. “You know, Jade, I _was_ sitting next to _both_ of my boyfriends!” As John talks, he watches Dave’s face, which twitches almost into a smile at the word “boyfriend”; John grins. Public affection is apparently his new favorite prank.

Jade looks carefully between Karkat and Dave. Dave seems too busy tapping out a rhythm on the table with both hands to pay attention to the conversation; this fools exactly no one. Karkat looks at her and shrugs one shoulder. Jade meets your eyes with a long-suffering look; you turn up your hands. This is clearly beyond your expertise.

Jade’s face scrunches in concentration for a brief moment, and then John is sitting between Dave and Karkat again. John happily takes Dave’s hand. “Thanks, Jade!”

Karkat and John hold hands actively. Karkat massages John’s right hand between both of his, his face scrunched in concentration. John rubs back, pushing in with his thumb, almost aggressively. Dave and John hold hands with steady, quiet pressure, the fingers of Dave’s right hand intertwined with John’s left.

John looks back and forth between Dave and Karkat, happily, almost tranquilly. Dave’s free hand is still tapping out rhythms on the tabletop; his face is turned down to watch it, carefully looking away from John and Karkat. He seems to be having trouble keeping a beat.

Moirallegiance is obviously more active than you had speculated, and more physical. You _think_ Dave’s relative passivity is due to his personality and the newness of the relationship; you well know that matespritship can be at least as active. How do mature troll couples distinguish between pale and flushed hand-holding? Lighter touches for the flushed? Perhaps flushed involves more caressing and pale more massage? Would the intertwined fingers be a sign of flush, or would Dave and John’s quietness be acceptable in either?

You are so busy taking mental notes about hand-holding that you completely tune out the conversation between Jade and Gamzee when he discovers she has changed seats. Which is a shame, because it was probably hilarious.

You need to get this conversation back on track. You had answers prepared for the questions they were supposed to ask, and you’re not going to let interpersonal drama get in the way. Your friends need to understand what to expect. You’re going to be here for the rest of your lives.

You resent John, for a moment, for being distracted by Dave and Karkat. You all know John is the leader of your group. You’ve found the problems; you’ve Seen; you’ve done what you had to do. Now his job is to lead! It’s his job to set goals and give cheerful pep talks and smile optimistically and keep a sense of humor. It’s his job to figure out how the hell you’re all going to _move on_ from a situation that, as far as you can tell, will never be more than survivable.

You kept things from getting any worse, but it’s his job to make them okay.

You clear your throat. “I imagine you’re all wondering, if the Lands are still there, why we need to find somewhere to settle, rather than joining the consorts’ societies. That is a reasonable question —“

“The consorts are morons,” Karkat breaks in, “who couldn’t build a real society if you went to the modular particleboard furniture sales depot and bought them all of the pieces and gave them the instructional pictogram sheet that even the most pan-damaged wriggler would be able to use to piece together a shitty fake version of society that would fall apart the first time some fucker dared to sit on it!”

“Your past experiences with troll Ikea aside, you are basically correct. The consorts are game constructs; they do not have a naturally dynamic society, and they adapt too easily to whatever is expected of them. Several of the Lands did not even _have_ a day/night cycle naturally, but now that they do the consorts have begun constructing streetlights and otherwise adapting with no sign that they’re aware of anything unusual.”

John looks up from his very expressive kind of hand-holding. [(“THIS IS WHAT THE REFRANCE”)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/174415) “But a lot of the Lands are still there, right? Like, the buildings that were there before?”

“Some of them,” you say.

John swings Dave’s hand happily back and forth. “So there _has_ to be a movie theater left somewhere! Dave, we can go on a movie date!! Ow, hey, Karkat, not so hard.” Karkat grumbles, but he seems mostly pacified.

Gamzee smiles. “Man, there were all to being some honk-a-doodle miraculous theaters all up in my wicked Happy Carnival Land!”

Dave shudders. “Hell no. Hell. No. Anyway, I already have the most ironic possible date planned.”

John looks impatient. “Come on, Dave, I thought I was supposed to be the one who takes _you_ out on dates!”

“Chill, babe, we’ll do that. I promise. I just thought I could get things started. Just give me an hour to get ready.” Dave is trying to sound casual, but his voice is slightly strained, and cracks on the word “babe”.

“Sweet! Meet you in the main airlock?” John looks around the table, where everyone is done eating. “Oh, uh, Rose…I kind of maybe forgot about the dishes last night, didn’t I? I will definitely do all of the dishes from breakfast! And also more later! Dave, maybe we should make it an hour and a half?” John pulls his hands back from Dave and Karkat, who both release him a little reluctantly, eyeing the other.

“Hey!” Jade points at John accusingly. “You and I still need to talk, and I want your undivided attention! Don’t think you can get out of that by being sappy and doing dishes!”

“I think,” you say, “that by taking his new position as your boyfriend, Dave has romantically volunteered to do your share of the dishes today. That will give me an opportunity to speak with him. Assuming he survives my scrutiny, I imagine he will be free for your ‘ironic date’ in two hours.”

“Aw, Rose!” says John. “You shouldn’t have to do more dishes today!”

“I don’t plan to. But if watching Dave becomes too tiring, you have my promise that I will take a break.”

“So you guys have the motherfucking dishes all up and taken care of?” asks Gamzee. “Aw yea. I need to find kittysis and spread the motherfucking good word that you two are all to being joined up at the motherfucking hip. Sis had her doubts but I had the faith.” With this, he wanders off.

Dave looks at John numbly. “Welp, there goes any chance we had at dignity.”

“You two never had any chance at dignity!” says Karkat. “You would be lucky to manage ‘not embarrassing enough to cause any casualties’! And the jury is still out on that, because if I see any more of your flushed cuddlehumping my gander bulbs are going to burrow so deep into my thinkpan I start having seizures!! Sorry, John, no offense to you.”

John smiles at him. “Dude, we were holding hands, not — anyway, no offense taken! It’s actually kind of cute how you two fight over me.” Dave and Karkat look embarrassed about this, but to you “kind of cute” is another sign that something is wrong with John’s perception of events.

Karkat stands up and stalks off dramatically. After getting about ten feet, he turns around and walks back to John, taking both of John’s hands in his and looking John in the eyes. “John? Have a good time on your date, okay? Really.”

John looks at Karkat’s face, and apparently finds sincerity, because he breaks into a relieved grin. “I will, Karkat! I really think I will!”

“And make sure that Strider knows that if he takes advantage of you, in any way, I will be there to gut his throat.”

“Karkat,” says Jade warningly.

“Nah, it’s cool,” says Dave. “He’ll have to wait in line, but he can have my throat when Terezi and Rose are done with it.”

Karkat lets go of John’s hands, gives him a brief hug, and absconds. Jade leads John off to a secluded area to have her own Serious Conversation; for an idle moment, you wish you could listen, but sadly, no one but the two of them will ever know what goes on in that conversation. It’s all right, it’s probably just some sort of boring generic sibling-threatening, and rehashing things that everyone but Jade has already found out.

Dave slowly gets to his feet and begins shuffling around the room, collecting dishes. He’s obviously not looking forward to talking to you, but he knows better than to argue.

You sit back and watch him work. “Dave, it’s so nice of you to finally make one of our appointments!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [TGP](http://tgpretender.tumblr.com/) for his constant support, and for writing most of Gamzee's dialogue in this chapter; and to [Loxie](http://eldritch--nebula.tumblr.com/) and [Soshi](http://soshiscribbles.co.vu/) for copyediting and suggestions.
> 
> And as always, thanks to everyone who left comments; even the shortest comment helps more than you know.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave learns that he may have acted in haste.

Rose will be fine with this. You haven’t done anything wrong, Terezi said so. She has to listen to Terezi, right? Girl is a Seer of Mind, she’d know if you were doing something wrong. Rose will get that.

You are totally fucked.

She watches you collect the dishes. Dishes which, once again, should have been John’s job, but you’re not stupid enough to complain. True to her word, she doesn’t offer to help. Finally, when the table is clear and you’re about to leave with your precariously-balanced stack of bowls, plates, and cups, she leans back in her seat and smiles. “Dave, it’s so nice of you to finally make one of our appointments!”

You grunt, and begin moving to the kitchen anyway. You don’t want to be stuck holding the pile of dishes for half an hour of conversation; your arms will get tired. You’re a knight, not a butler (those dudes can carry their plates). Anyway, if you put the dishes back down you’re pretty sure she’ll make fun of you for not cleaning, so your only choice is to abscond with them and assume she’ll follow.

Rose does, indeed, follow you. “You and John seem very happy together.” She sounds casual, friendly; if you didn’t know her, you might think it was a congratulation rather than an accusation.

“Yeah,” you say. He really does seem happy, doesn’t he? Huh.

You put the dishes in the sink, but you don’t actually start washing them, because you’re not sure you’d be able to hear Rose over the water. You turn back towards her, leaning on the counter behind you. You both know you’re here to talk, not do dishes, and you’re starting to wish Rose would get to the point. “So. What’s up? Here to threaten me, tell me I need to stop, what?”

Rose tilts her head to the side, and steeples her hands like a cartoon villain. “I wouldn’t dream of telling either of you what to do, Dave. I’m just surprised, particularly by John. Yesterday, he was asking me about the ethics of a similar scenario, and he told me that asking _you_ to change yourself would be ‘super rude and terrible’ of him.”

Oh cool, she _does_ think you’re trash. “I didn’t ask him to change. And I’m not asking him to change who he is. I’ve got that shit covered. I told him he didn’t need to act any differently, and it wasn’t a big deal or anything, we were just going to try it as long as he liked it. I wanted to make sure he didn’t wake up thinking he needed to start mincing and singing Broadway musicals just because he was going to go out with me.” You leave out the part where you made a joke about turning him a sex slave and then you almost freaked the fuck out. That’s the other thing you made sure wasn’t happening.

Rose stares at the ceiling for a moment, then nods in satisfaction. “That does explain it. I thought it was odd that he can’t seem to hold in his head why we might be concerned about this.”

Is she changing the subject? “You know him. He’s like that. He worries about everyone else, but he’s always had trouble understanding that other people might worry about _him_.” You’re almost sure you’re not smiling.

Rose crosses her arms and makes eye contact (which the goggles are _supposed_ to prevent). “No, Dave. I mean that Karkat and I have each repeatedly tried to explain why we are concerned. He seems literally unable to take the problem seriously for more than a few minutes at a time. He understands us, he admits we have a point, and then a few minutes later he’s back to telling us what a great, fun, casual experiment it is, that we shouldn’t possibly be worried about.”

“Wait, what? Shit.” You fucked this up, you _knew_ you’d fuck this up, you don’t deserve him, you’re going to —

“It does seem like we’re making progress, though,” Rose continues unforgivingly. “I can’t divulge the details of any conversations I may have had with Karkat, but I’d say that at this rate, it should only take another dozen or so attempts before his concern for us and his logic manage to overpower your suggestion. Really, we should be comforted that your control isn’t absolute.”

Rose waits. You notice that you’re tapping your foot, but you don’t care quite enough to stop. There is a long, awkward silence; Rose shows no inclination to break it and no sign of becoming bored. For almost twenty seconds, you both watch your foot tap.

You fail to find escape by burrowing foot-first through the metal floor. Finally you look back up at her. “You know that’s not what I was trying to do.”

“Yes, your motives were as pure as the driven snow.”

“I’m not pretending I don’t want him, but I don’t want him like that.” You _can’t_ want him like that. You have to fix this. Damn, damn, damn. You’ve felt off-balance ever since the universes went all funny, nothing is when it’s supposed to be, and now you’re falling and you’re taking other people with you.

Maybe things will quiet down now that Rose’s job is finished; but something tells you it won’t be quick. You never thought you’d be desperate enough you’d want some closed time loops just to have something to anchor to. Speaking of which — “Hey Rose? Any chance I can time travel yet?”

Rose doesn’t seem surprised by the question. “If I understand the theory correctly, going back to change what’s happened would doom you, wouldn’t it?”

“Nah. Well, yeah, it would, but nah, that’s not what I’m thinking. Look, fish gotta fly, trains gotta swim, you didn’t tell John he couldn’t use his breath powers, I resent you singling me out just because it would ‘destroy the fragile fabric of our new universe’ or whatever bullshit Aradia was feeding you.” 

You don’t in any way feel uncomfortable with the conversation, but you happen to turn away from Rose to start rearranging the dishes in the sink. You still don’t turn the water on, since you still have to be able to hear her; you just restack the dishes so they’ll be easier to clean later. It’s important to have them in an efficient order, right? Nope, looks like you did it wrong; you start taking them out of the sink one at a time and putting them back on the counter.

Rose’s voice takes on a sing-song quality behind you. “Before your powers can be free, they are bound to errands three! First, to save a life; second, to save a love; third, to save us all.” Delivering prophecy does nothing to make her sound less smugly self-satisfied.

“Great, so I have to do a fairy tale quest before I can use my powers. Awesome. I’m totally not sick of quests even a little bit. At least this one’s easy to remember. Life, love, and … what was the third thing I have to save? Taco night? The Alamo? I’m sure it’ll come to me. Holy shit, Rose, why don’t we have taco night? We could be eating tacos every week. We are wasting our lives. Anyway, after all that I’m good for whenever?”

“How do you use time travel after that? Hmm.” She’s quiet for a minute, and eventually you turn back to look at her. Rose is frowning, with her eyes closed; she moves her hands like she’s can’t decide whether she’s grasping for purchase or conducting a symphony. Then she suddenly coughs, gives an indelicate gulp, and starts blushing. She opens her eyes and grins at you. “Dave, is there anything that this game could give you, any curse so terrible, any ability so powerful, that you would not eventually use it for sex?”

“Whoa, what? Sex? What am I going to do, sleep with someone _tomorrow_? I know how these loops work. Future me would still be there. It’s not like I can come into my bedroom all, ‘hey, me, don’t mind me, just here to —‘” You would still be there. In the room.

You and John…and you.

You’re pretty sure your face is turning red. You eventually manage a strangled “Oh. Really?”

“I’ve always suspected narcissistic personality disorder, but I was hoping to never have such a powerfully visual demonstration.” The look on Rose’s face doesn’t seem particularly regretful. That may be what “leering” looks like.

“So, uh…is that something I’m going to end up doing a lot?”

“I haven’t checked exhaustively, nor is there anything remaining in this universe sufficient to entice me to do so. At this point, the future seems to be up to you. You control your own destiny, Dave. The power is yours.”

“Huh.” This is something you’ll have to think about. In detail.

“Unless, of course, you don’t make things right with John. In that case, your future is up to me, and I’m afraid it will be quite limited.”

“Heh. Yeah, make things right, I am all about that, I am going to be making things right like a game of tetris where one button on the controller is broken so you couldn’t make things left no matter how hard you tried. There’s a sweet l-block coming up that just wants to fit into its perfect little hole on the left, but I’m so busy making things right it’s game over, giant pile of blocks slammed up against the right-hand wall like someone … tilted the gameboy and … they all fell down. Because down is to the right now.” That one got away from you.

When you look back up at Rose, she has used the break in the conversation to retrieve a metal folding chair from her sylladex. It looks exactly like the industrial-grade “assembly” chairs that might fill an elementary school auditorium when a local celebrity is visiting. She carefully adjusts the angle and position, then decaptchalogues a cloth, which she uses to primly wipe off the seat.

Despite yourself, you are caught off guard by this; you spend fourteen silent, disbelieving seconds watching her wipe off the chair and carefully position herself. She looks up at you, her expression carefully neutral. “So what do you plan to do?”

You don’t have any ironic furniture captchalogued (which is really your own fault), so you hop up to sit on the kitchen counter, facing her. That’s how a cool dude sits in the kitchen. He makes his own seat. He just plants his butt down right where other people prepare their food, because he’s too cool to care about butt germs. Butt germs are other people’s problems.

Your legs don’t reach the floor, and you feel like you’re about six years old. Good move. You examine the ceiling as you talk. How the hell do those lights work, anyway? “I guess I was probably going to … okay, so … I could tell him it is a big deal? No, wait, that’s stupid. I could tell him it can be? If he wants it to? Look, you obviously have this all sorted out, tell me what I’m supposed to do here.”

Your plan here is _solid_. She wants you to admit you fucked up? Well, you fucked up, you don’t know how to fix it, and if the prize is John you’ll start your own chapter of the “Rose Lalonde Fixes My Problems” club. You’ll make t-shirts and everything. You knew it couldn’t be this easy, and it wasn’t, but this is just a setback! Rose will write you a script and you’ll take off your goggles and read it to John. She’ll hold it over your head for the rest of your life, but you’ll be making out with John Egbert on the minigolf course by mid-afternoon today, so you’re prepared to be magnanimous.

She still hasn’t said anything. She opens her mouth once, and then closes it again. She frowns at you. You try to stop swinging your feet in the air like a small child. “Hey, Rose, you win, okay? How do I fix this?”

She stares at the sink as she answers. “Well, normally, I would say that communication is the key to a healthy relationship, particularly when difficulties are encountered. I imagine that should still be true in this rather…unorthodox case.”

“Holy shit, you don’t actually know how I should fix this. Seriously, your great idea is I should talk to him about it? Like hey John, I fucked up the hypnosis because I didn’t want you to turn into a sex slave or a walking stereotype, and actually both of us are idiots, do you forgive me? Oh, it’s not a problem, great. Except you think it isn’t a problem because I told you it’s not a problem, so I guess let’s try to finish this golf game before Karkat figures out what happened and — fuck, wait, is that why he and Karkat were — fuck. He is going to kill me. They are both going to kill me.”

“I assume you have a better idea?”

“Squirrels have better ideas, Rose. Regularly. And as soon as I figure out what one of them is, I will be all about doing it.” There is another long silence. “So on a scale of one to ten, how much do you think I’ve fucked up my chances here?”

“Your chances? Your _chances_? Is that what you’re still worried about?!” Rose stands up, her fists balled at her sides; then she pauses, closes her eyes for a moment, and visibly takes a deep breath. 

When she continues, her voice is calm. “I have been more than tolerant, Dave. The two of you engaged on this ill-advised venture without asking the advice of anyone, without so much as a warning. This is one of the most impulsive and irresponsible things I have ever seen from either of you. From anyone!

“But you are my friends, and as much as I may question your judgment, I am here for you. I am here to help you both get through this charade without violence and without anyone being taken advantage of. But if you think for even a moment that I _approve_ , that I am here to help your ‘chances’, that I am going to ‘play wingman’ while you seduce John Egbert, then you are sorely mistaken.” She advances on you as she talks, and by now she’s standing in front of your counter, poking her finger accusingly up into your chest.

You scoot forward to get off of the counter; you give Rose time to back up, and she does. “Whoops, sorry, guess I forgot how easy it should have been for me to hook up with a troll and call it a day. Yeah, remind me why I didn’t get with Terezi? Oh wait, I’m gay. Hey, Equius talked to me sometimes, I’m sure I could get used to the sweat. And Eridan, hey, I wouldn’t date Eridan unless he was the last guy in the universe, which, spoiler alert, he basically is.”

Your hands are on her shoulders; she moves back, and you advance. Your tone is steady, but your words are getting faster and you can’t slow them down. “Hey, so what’s a guy who’s into other guys and isn’t into sleeping in buckets of slime supposed to do? Maybe I was reading too much into his goddamn mancrushes on terrible actors, but you know, before this whole game shitstorm I really thought I had a chance with John Egbert. Then it’s nope, universe is over and ‘Gee, sorry Dave, I thought you knew I was straight!’.

“So when the last human guy in the universe came to me and said, ‘Hey, I figured it out’, maybe I didn’t want to ask questions! Maybe I didn’t want to ask your permission, or hear a thousand reasons to not do it from you. I could have given you a thousand reasons myself. But you know what? When he was in my room saying ‘I don’t want to think about it any more, I just want to do it’, that sounded a lot like ‘this is the only chance you’re going to get.’”

You’ve backed Rose almost to the chair; you step back a few paces, lean one arm on the counter, try and stabilize. You’re just going to lounge here for a minute. The room is blurry with tears; you have to turn around completely to wipe your eyes under the goggles.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is on the shorter side, and could have gone with the previous chapter, but that's one of the risks of publishing as you write. It definitely wouldn't go with the next chapter.
> 
> This chapter goes near some sensitive topics. I tried hard to be neither preachy nor offensive, but I'm always happy to hear feedback.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] \--

TG: hey terezi  
TG: when you were checking on john  
TG: did you notice anything  
TG: i dunno  
TG: that maybe id wanna do different next time  
TG: true artists are always up for constructive criticism  
TG: nah thats bullshit but anyway anything strike you  
GC: D4V3   
GC: 1F YOU TH1NK 1 4M GO1NG TO G1V3 YOU 4DV1C3 ON HOW TO MOST S3X1LY HYPNOT1Z3 YOUR M4T3SPR1T  
GC: YOU W1LL H4V3 TO 4SK MOR3 N1C3LY TH4N TH4T!  
TG: what no fuck  
TG: no i just mean  
TG: like  
TG: problems  
TG: any problems that you maybe feel like you should have warned me about  
GC: NO  
GC: WHY?  
GC: D1D YOU BR34K 3GB3RT 4LR34DY?  
TG: look he just  
TG: i didnt want him to blow this all out of proportion okay  
TG: so i maybe told him a couple times not to worry about any of it  
TG: and now hes going all stepford wives no big deal everything is hunky doodle  
GC: D4V3  
GC: YOU H3LP3D H1M G3T OV3R SOM3 W31RD PSYCHOLOG1C4L H4NGUP 4BOUT D4T1NG GUYS  
GC: YOU TOLD H1M 1T 1SNT 4 B1G D34L B3C4US3  
GC: SHOCK1NGLY 3NOUGH  
GC: 1T 1SNT 4 B1G D34L  
GC: 4ND 1F H3 N33D3D YOU TO S4Y TH4T 1TS 4 L1TTL3 W31RD BUT 1 DONT UND3RST4ND TH3 PROBL3M  
GC: W3R3 YOU HOP1NG H3 WOULD B3 MOR3 ROM4NT1C 4BOUT 1T?  
GC: OV3RCOM1NG H1S P4ST TO B3 W1TH YOU?  
TG: right the troll thing  
TG: okay dont know what i was expecting here  
GC: >:[  
TG: dont give me that face  
GC: >:( ?  
TG: look i want to come live with you in magical pansexual paradise land  
TG: seriously i do  
TG: i dont want to deal with this shit  
TG: but humans arent wired that way  
TG: at least  
TG: im not  
TG: and egberts not  
TG: its this whole big thing for humans  
TG: like seriously sexuality is almost as big for us as the waffles vs pancakes question  
GC: 1 ST1LL DONT UND3RST4ND HOW YOU C4N B3L13V3 BR34KF4ST D1SCSPONG3S 4R3 SUP3R1OR TO FR13D GR41N L4TT1C3S  
GC: BUT 1 DONT M4K3 4 B1G D34L 4BOUT 1T!  
TG: see i keep telling you  
TG: on earth i wouldn't even be able to keep being your friend  
TG: my human lusus would have cut me the fuck off  
TG: he didnt raise no wafflefucker  
TG: but ive grown a lot since i met you guys and im getting over it  
GC: YOU S33M JUST 4S 4DOR4BLY T1NY TO M3 >:P  
TG: hey fuck you about that too  
TG: but seriously  
TG: ive been kind of an asshole here  
TG: i dunno  
TG: guess i dont know where to go from here  
TG: i was hoping youd have an opinion on how hard i fucked this up  
GC: DO YOU TH1NK YOUV3 4CTU4LLY HURT YOUR FR13ND?  
GC: 1N 4 S1GN1F1C4NT W4Y?  
TG: no  
TG: yes  
TG: no  
TG: fuck i dunno  
TG: i thought thats what we had some sort of brain looker for  
TG: to tell me that shit  
TG: i   
TG: i guess i think no?  
GC: TH3 D3F3ND4NT S33MS 3QU1VOC4L!  
GC: P3RH4PS 1F H3 1S R34DY TO CONF3SS TH3 D3T41LS, TH3 COURT C4N D3T3RM1N3 WH3TH3R 4 CR1M3 H4S B33N COMM1TT3D  
GC: 4ND HOW TO 3NSUR3 TH3 W3LLB31NG OF TH3 V1CT1M, 1F 4NY  
TG: awkwete wonders why terezi has to constantly roleplay out any conversation that gets serious even a little bit  
TG: what is even with that girl thinks akwete  
GC: *TH3 L3G1SL4C3R4TOR 1S W41T1NG*  
TG: okay so  
TG: i hypnotized john to like me  
TG: maybe you picked up on that part  
TG: magic curse eyes  
GC: TH4T ST1LL S33MS MOR3 L1K3 4 SP3C14L 4B1L1TY TH4N 4 CURS3  
TG: whatever  
GC: WH4T3V3R?  
GC: TH4TS 4LL YOU H4V3 TO S4Y? WH4T3V3R?  
GC: YOUR3 4CTU4LLY UPS3T 4BOUT YOUR 3Y3S >:[  
TG: no not whatever like im actually upset  
TG: theyre great not a problem at all  
TG: just whatever like whatever  
GC: >:|  
TG: look can we talk about that later  
TG: point is  
TG: theres a buncha cultural baggage that comes along with a guy liking another guy in my part of the universe  
TG: i mean it doesnt have to be  
TG: ive always been kinda okay whatever  
TG: but its a big part of some peoples identities i guess  
TG: like real big sometimes  
TG: like i dunno your name or ... okay im still not sure whether troll ethnicity is a thing but im gonna say blood color  
TG: like as big as that for some people  
GC: D4V3  
GC: BLOOD COLOR 1S 4 R34LLY HUG3 P4RT OF 4 TROLLS 1D3NT1TY  
GC: 1T 1S NOT JUST 4 F4SH1ON D3C1S1ON OR SOM3TH1NG 4BOUT WH1CH PSYCH1C POW3RS YOU DO OR DO NOT H4V3  
GC: OR 3V3N JUST YOUR C4R33R 4ND L1F3SP4N  
GC: 1T 1S P4RT OF L1T3R4LLY 3V3RY 1NT3R4CT1ON 4ND R3L4T1ONSH1P YOU 3V3R H4V3  
TG: yeah  
TG: i know  
TG: im not saying for everyone  
TG: just  
TG: you know  
TG: sometimes  
GC: YOUR ROM4NT1C PR3F3R3NC3S?  
GC: R34LLY?  
TG: yeah humans huh  
GC: OK4Y  
GC: SO 1N TROLL T3RMS  
GC: JOHN 1S N4TUR4LLY 4 ... STR41GHTBLOOD, 4ND YOU W4NT H1M TO F1LL TH3 SOC14L 4ND R3L4T1ONSH1P ROL3S OF 4 G4YBLOOD  
GC: BUT YOU R3QU1R3D H1M TO DO SO W1THOUT C4R1NG 4BOUT TH3 CH4NG3 OR 3V3N R34LLY TH1NK1NG 4BOUT TH3 D3T41LS  
TG: okay new rule  
TG: lets maybe not make up words for the rest of the conversation  
TG: and look its not always that bad  
TG: like i said ive never cared much about being  
TG: oh god now i want to say gayblood  
GC: >;]  
TG: look anyway  
TG: johns kinda  
TG: traditional i guess  
TG: in some ways  
TG: for all i know he mostly thinks gay people are tv characters  
TG: so all i was trying to do was say  
TG: doesnt have to be a big deal dude  
TG: you dont have to start lisping or swinging your hips or liking musicals   
GC: TH3 G4YBLOODS H4V3 TH31R OWN M4NN3R1SMS 4ND CULTUR3?  
TG: okay look rose can never hear us use that word okay  
TG: never  
TG: never ever ever  
TG: but yeah there are a bunch of gayblood stereotypes lets talk about the details later   
TG: maybe once im dead  
GC: 1LL 4DD 1T TO MY C4L3ND4R  
TG: jesus fuck you are creepy sometimes  
GC: >:D  
TG: smile  
TG: or whatever  
GC: >:D >:D >:D  
TG: okay thats enough of that  
GC: >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D  
TG: wow seven  
TG: good thing you counted that  
TG: could have been awkward if that had kept going  
GC: >:[  
TG: sorry  
TG: anyway yeah  
TG: so i told him no big deal  
TG: hes still him in all his straightblood glory  
TG: this is just an option  
TG: i guess i wanted to make sure if it didnt work out hed tell me  
TG: without feeling pressured or whatever  
TG: its something were trying and if it doesnt work no harm no foul no homo  
TG: i was trying to say a bunch of stuff about that  
GC: 1T SOUNDS L1K3 YOU H4D H1S 1NT3R3STS 1N M1ND  
GC: 1F NOT C4R1NG 4BOUT YOUR BLOODS3X 1S NORM4L FOR SOM3 P3OPL3, WHY 1S 1T B4D FOR JOHN?  
TG: okay im with you on gayblood but hell no on bloodsex  
TG: and the problem is   
TG: i fucked it up  
TG: i basically gave him a shotgun blast to his taking shit seriously lobe  
TG: look this is a pretty stupid thing for us to be doing okay  
TG: we dont know if its gonna work  
TG: we dont know if hes gonna be happy  
TG: hell even if it works its probably not the way youre supposed to start a relationship  
TG: its hella creepy  
TG: plus he and karkat had some kinda big fight because every time karkat tries to ask him about this john giggles and wanders off  
TG: so im taking down his other relationships  
TG: quadrants  
GC: D4V3  
GC: H4V3 YOU CONS1D3R3D TH4T M4YB3   
GC: B3FOR3 YOU W3NT M3SS1NG 4ROUND 1N YOUR FLUSHCRUSHS BR41N  
GC: YOU SHOULD H4V3 4SK3D SOM3ON3 WHO 4CTU4LLY KN3W WH4T TH3Y W3R3 DO1NG  
TG: nah rose was asleep  
GC: H4 H4  
TG: look i get it  
TG: like i said i fucked it up  
TG: you can just scroll up and smell that admission whenever you feel the urge  
GC: 1 S3T 1T 4S MY B4CKGROUND 4CTU4LLY >:]  
TG: great thats great  
TG: but look  
TG: can you fix him or not  
GC: OF COURS3 1 C4N F1X H1M, D4V3  
GC: TH3R3S NOTH1NG YOU C4N DO TH4T 1 WOULDNT F1X  
TG: okay thats a weird way of saying that  
GC: <>  
TG: <>  
GC: >:D  
TG: we should do that more itll piss karkat off something fierce  
GC: >:?  
TG: ironic troll romance jokes are the best  
TG: youre my girl  
TG: you get my sense of humor  
TG: <> <> <> <> <>  
TG: itd be funnier if karkat and egbert werent so weird about it though  
TG: what the hell is with them anyway?  
TG: humans dont do troll romance  
TG: i think egbert was broken before i got to him  
GC: 4 JOK3  
GC: Y34H  
GC: H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4!!!!  
GC: 4 TROLL 4ND 4 HUM4N P4L3 FOR 34CH OTH3R  
GC: BRB

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] is now an idle troll. --

TG: hey you back yet  
TG: okay im gonna start these dishes  
TG: gotta get ready for my date  
TG: whatever the hell im gonna do for that

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] has returned. --

GC: SORRY D4V3  
GC: 1 TH1NK 1 H4D 4 CULTUR4L M1SUND3RST4ND1NG  
TG: ???  
GC: 1 JUST N33D3D 4 M1NUT3  
GC: 1M B4CK NOW  
TG: okay cool i guess  
TG: i finished the dishes  
GC: 1 TH1NK YOU 4ND JOHN SHOULD D3C1D3 WH4T TO DO 4BOUT TH1S  
GC: 1T 1S OBV1OUSLY B3TW33N TH3 TWO OF YOU  
GC: 4ND 1T 1SNT MY PL4C3 TO G3T 1N TH3 W4Y  
TG: no no no rose told me to talk to him that is so dumb  
TG: and by dumb i mean i really dont want to  
TG: and also what do i do if he doesnt take the problem seriously  
GC: T4LK TO H1M 4G41N  
TG: okay look  
TG: i   
TG: i really want this to work  
TG: with him  
TG: tell me i didnt fuck this up terezi  
TG: i dont know if im going to get another chance here  
GC: T4LK W1TH JOHN YOURS3LF  
GC: 1F YOU D3C1D3 TOG3TH3R TH4T YOU W4NT M3 TO 1NT3RV3N3 1 W1LL  
GC: 1N MY ROL3 4S TH3 S33R OF M1ND TH4T 1S MY R3SPONS1B1L1TY  
TG: so  
TG: you think he and i can still work it out  
GC: ...  
GC: Y34H  
GC: 1 TH1NK SO  
TG: okay  
TG: well imma go do that  
TG: thanks terezi  
TG: you always help me get my head screwed on right  
GC: W3LL  
GC: 1 L34RN3D 4 LOT 4BOUT HUM4N R3L4T1ONSH1PS TOD4Y  
GC: SO 1 GU3SS TH4TS SOM3TH1NG  
TG: cool  
TG: later

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] \--


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave has something important to talk to John about, but John insists that they go on their date instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Chapter 2](http://archiveofourown.org/works/285112/chapters/454684) now features a really amazing illustration by roachpatrol, I recommend you check it out. Also, that's where the hypnosis scene is, and reviewing what Dave said might clarify some things :B

You look at yourself in the mirror, frown, and make another try at brushing your hair.

You are not really sure how a guy is supposed to get ready for a date. Is it different if you’re dating another guy? You took a shower this morning, and you’ve brushed your teeth really really well, and there isn’t that much else to do! You’ve been wearing your god tier clothes every day (they seem to magically clean themselves, which is nice because you are not very good with laundry). Should you wear something else?

Oh, your PDA is beeping.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

TG: hey  
EB: hey dave!  
TG: so uh  
TG: have time to talk?  
EB: *rolls eyes* dave, we are literally going to be seeing each other in like 30 minutes!  
EB: unless i was imagining the "totally ironic" date you promised to take me on?  
TG: no thats still on  
TG: if you want it  
TG: its just  
EB: dave.  
EB: if you don't know what to do that's okay. you have only had one day to plan!  
EB: we don't have to do anything big.  
TG: no jesus i have a plan for the date  
EB: good! :D  
EB: then i will see you there, but for now, i have a DATE with my BOYFRIEND to get ready for, okay? :p  
TG: okay okay  
TG: chill  
TG: ill see you at the date i guess  
EB: speaking of which, can you give me a hint about where we're going?  
TG: just something from my land i think youll like  
EB: great! see you in the airlock?  
TG: nah i asked jade   
TG: shell teleport us there from the common room  
EB: dude, you know you can fly, right?  
EB: it comes with god tier!  
EB: even for those of us whose elements aren't as graceful as breath.  
EB: (still better btw)  
TG: obviously i can fly  
TG: but dude flying is for chumps  
TG: flying is basically like walking but in the sky  
TG: too much effort for cool guys like me  
TG: like us  
TG: nothing but the finest doggirl teleportation will do  
EB: i don't think i've ever seen you fly, though.  
EB: ever.  
EB: even rose flies sometimes.  
TG: she just does that when shes being passive aggressive about how no one ever mops  
EB: dave, are you afraid of heights?  
TG: no  
TG: hell no  
TG: thatd be so dumb  
TG: i can fly remember  
TG: why would i be afraid of heights  
EB: *narrows eyes suspiciously*  
TG: look just meet me and jade in the common room ok  
EB: okay, dave.  
EB: but don't think this is over!  
EB: :p

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

Were you supposed to end the conversation with a heart? Is that every time, or just sometimes? Having a boyfriend is hard.

Boyfriend. That’s such a weird word. Boyfriend. You try it out loud. “Boyfriend. Boy friend. Dave is a boy, who was my friend, and now he is my boyfriend. A boy who is my boyfriend. Dave. Dave Strider is my boyfriend.” That’s sure as hell not something you expected you’d ever say, is it? 

The boy in the mirror is blushing, but he looks happy.

You _are_ happy. You’re going out with Dave! You’re going to do romantic sappy shit, and it’s going to be great. You’ll get to hold his hand, and hear his voice, and smell his warm, comforting scent. You’ll get to look at his face and his rocking bod.

You feel dumber when you realize how many times you’ve thought the phrase “rocking bod” in the last day. You are going to have to talk with Dave about word choice! Maybe you should make him draft things on paper next time.

Anyway, he _does_ have a rocking bod. In your opinion. And you’re going to enjoy it.

Not enjoy it like anything dirty!! Just, like, looking … looking at him, well…. obviously he should keep his clothes on, well, most of his clothes…probably…maybe he could take his shirt off? And…

Later! That’s the kind of stuff you’re supposed to worry about later! For now, you’re just trying things. This is going to be _so_ awesome.

Anyway, if you’re going to LoHaC, the god tier outfit is probably overkill. Too hot, and too formal for what’s obviously going to be a pretty casual date. You change into your green slime ghost t-shirt and shorts. Aggh, now your hair is all weird again.

You waste nearly thirty minutes on this tomfoolery.

When you do get to the common room, Dave and Jade are talking, and — oh god, really? A suit?

Dave is wearing a starched black suit. He shifts his weight awkwardly as he talks to Jade; his back is to the entrance, and he hasn’t seen you yet. The suit fits him well, very well, but the flared shoulders and tapered hips of the “classically masculine” look don’t actually do anything for you. And you still don’t know exactly where you’re going, but you’re pretty sure that between the two of you, your shorts and t-shirt were a better choice for a casual date in the Land of Heat and Clockwork. Land of Heat! It’s in the name!

Dave turns around when he hears you laughing. There’s a white broken-record emblem on the suit’s chest.

“See, Dave?” asks Jade, “I _told you_ you were overdressed!”

“Warned you about suits, bro!” you contribute helpfully.

“Told you, dog,” says Dave, but his heart doesn’t seem in it. “And this suit is black. Black goes with anything. Even with a t-shirt and, what are those, cargo shorts? Man, you are such a nerd.” 

You’re so busy listening to Dave’s voice that it takes you a second to realize you’re probably supposed to reply. His voice is smooth, and manly, and somehow…strong. The rest of him is always so vulnerable, but his voice is strong; you could listen to him talk all day.

Okay, you’ve gotten distracted here. “You said this was going to be casual! Didn’t you?” You can’t exactly remember Dave telling you that, exactly, you just knew that this date wasn’t going to be a big deal. It was going to be romantic, obviously! And sappy! But in a casual way. “And you definitely said it was going to be on LoHaC, which was covered in lava last time I was there! I’m pretty sure lava is shorts weather, Dave! Durrr.”

Dave looks down at his clothes. (It really is a nice suit). “Yeah, dude, the lava is what makes the suit ironic. But hey, I understand if the Strider swag is too much when it’s packaged for display like a prime set of ribs in the trophy case of the biggest high school atrium you’ve ever seen. Local mothers come by to relive their glory days, look at the old cheerleading trophy they won back in ’96, but if I keep this suit on they won’t even be able to find their old third place state win because the whole building will be swagged to the brim. I got it, I don’t mind changing. It’s for the cheerleaders.”

His voice is so wonderful you actually enjoy listening to his analogy. Based on the look on Jade’s face, this was made possible only by magical assistance. Which is fine! If she doesn’t appreciate his voice then _she_ doesn’t have to date him. Jade just rolls her eyes at him. “Nope! I told you ten minutes ago you were overdressed, and I’m not waiting here while you go back to change.”

You make soothing gestures at Dave. “Dude, you don’t look _bad_ , it’s just not really my thing, you know? It looks like you are trying to be someone you’re not, like, some kind of male model or something! I like _you_ , not…some guy in a suit.” As you’d planned, Dave is stunned by your romantic speech; he turns beet red, mumbles something inaudible, and stares at the floor. Unlike your plan, however, you can feel yourself blushing almost as hard.

Jade rubs her forehead. “Great. Now that that’s settled, I can — oh, John.” She points a finger at you. “You remember what we talked about, right?”

“Yes!” You don’t have any trouble looking serious. Jade is worrying about a bunch of nothing, but you can tell that _she’s_ worried about it, and you don’t want her to talk to you again. The things she’s worried about are a long way in the future, anyway, right? You don’t even need to be _thinking_ about sex yet!

“Great!” Jade squints at you and Dave, frowning slightly. The world ripples around you, and you find yourself on —

Is this a minigolf course?

You’re standing just inside the gates of what could almost pass for a normal minigolf course on earth, assuming someone had decided to build a minigolf course with a gears-and-crocodiles theme. It’s apparently night-time on LoHaC, but between the overhead lighting and the course itself you won’t have any trouble seeing.

“Dave? Why does your land have a minigolf course?”

“Hey, this isn’t just ‘a’ minigolf course, this is the first of like thirty of them. Well okay, I guess ever since we squeezed all of the bits together to make a big land quilt most of them probably ended up in the scraps pile, but hey, this was the first one. Super easy.”

Your face crinkles at the heat. “Dave, there’s lava.”

“Obviously there’s lava, John. It’s a golf course.”

“Obviously.” You look around, and don’t see any of Dave’s crocodile consorts. “So why isn’t there anyone else around?”

“I reserved the entire course, just for us.”

You grin. “It’s perfect! It’s the perfect first date.” You step toward him and take his hand; it’s cold, but you still feel a shock of something like warmth where his skin touches yours. You grasp tight; he squeezes, once, but then his hand feels limp in your own.

You wait, and he doesn’t say anything. Eventually you ask, “So, do we need clubs or something?”

His head is turned down, away from you. “Look, John, there’s stuff we need to talk about.”

Oh god. Him too? “Dave, the only thing we need to talk about is how much I’m going to kick your ass at minigolf.”

He pulls his hand back, and you let it go. He looks up at you. “Seriously, we should talk about this. When I was —“

You press one finger gently to his lips, and you can feel his sudden intake of breath. His lips are warm, and softer than you’d have expected. “Dave,” you say, “I know there’s a bunch of stuff we are going to have to figure out about this. We are going to need to talk and talk and talk! What we are doing is super weird. But I have already gotten through a long conversation with Jade this morning, and I am talked out! Take me mini-golfing, and I promise we can talk later.”

Dave frowns, but when you pull back your hand he shrugs. “Cool. Golf now, talk after. Never let anybody tell you I don’t treat you right.”

“Oh, Mr. Strider, oh! Take me golfing harder!”

Dave ignores your comment. “Let me get our stuff, it should be in the office.” He disappears into a door in a nearby building, and doesn’t come back for several minutes. At one point, there are crashing noises, but they don’t sound dangerous, just embarrassing. You wait, juggling the breeze back and forth and trying to feel pampered instead of bored. You have only moderate success.

Dave eventually returns, handing you a club and a small bag with five blue golf balls. You look in the bag with confusion. “I thought each person only gets one ball, then the last hole eats it. That’s how they know you’re done.”

Dave takes a red ball out of his own bag, weighs it in his hand, and then throws it into a pool of lava between the first two holes. It floats for a moment, then bursts into flame, releasing thick, black smoke. “I got a lot of practice, so that one’s a freebie.”

One freebie isn’t enough.

You lose two balls early, before you learn to play careful; meanwhile Dave seems more concerned with watching you than the game. (Apparently the shorts were a good choice after all?) Of course, being careful costs you strokes, and even with him distracted you fall behind quickly. On the fourth hole, while he’s setting up, you ask him “How much of this did you even play?”

He doesn’t look up from lazily arranging his shot. “I was all about this, man. It was a whole minigame. One of the best teams on LoHaC.” As casual as his posture is, his face is somehow _focused_ in a way you’re not used to seeing; he has a tiny frown of concentration. You like watching Dave play golf.

“You had a team?”

“Have you never played a video game before, John? Of course I had a minigolf team.” He makes a shot, perfectly reflecting from an obstacle and going straight across a rickety bridge suspended over a pool of lava. With one stroke his ball is next to the hole. The suit obviously isn’t getting in his way. “We went to the championships.”

You decide not to take the shortcut. This hole says it’s Par 3, but Dave’s going to do it in 2, and it’s going to take you at least 4. “I don’t think minigolf has teams, Dave. Or championships!” Your shot is conservative, but at least it goes where it’s supposed to.

“What can I say? LoHaC had some bomb-ass quests.” He sinks his ball easily, then steps back to watch you finish the hole.

“Oh man! Did you win your hypno eyes in a carnival game?” 

“Nah, man. Baked the first place pie at the LoHaC state fair.”

You manage in four shots, which is all you’d been hoping for.

The next hole doesn’t go any better. Dave has apparently had way more practice at this! He is basically cheating. Really, if you think about it, he’s using advantages from the game, right? The game made him go on all those quests, which is giving him an advantage now. So it would only be fair for you to use your own game advantages….

On Hole 6, the wind starts to pick up. Dave tilts his head into the breeze for a second, but he doesn’t say anything. Still, you know he noticed, and you think he probably guesses what’s going on, so you don’t do anything until Hole 9.

Hole 9 is Par 12, and probably more elaborate than some entire minigolf *courses* on Earth. You’re not sure that Sburb really understands the idea of “mini”golf. Dave chooses a particularly tricky route, which involves getting the ball to come to a stop on the tooth of a turning gear, carrying it up to the upper half of the hole. Unfortunately for him, a gust of wind pushes the ball just a little bit too far, and it goes into the lava.

Dave makes a “huh” noise, but doesn’t say anything much. He records a 2-stroke penalty, and walks back to the beginning of the hole to play his next ball. You studiously put your head down and concentrate on your next shot, so that he doesn’t see you grin. You lost another one on Hole 8, so you’re down to 2 balls; he hasn’t lost any more, so he’s at 3.

Dave tries for the same shortcut again. He doesn’t even watch the ball roll; he just watches you, with his arms crossed, daring you to try something. You grin at him and spread your arms innocently; the wind is still blowing, but it doesn’t do anything to his ball, and you both end the hole with 14 strokes.

For the next few holes, you don’t try anything drastic, but you give your ball an occasional nudge, saving you a stroke or two when you think you can get away with it. He gestures you to start on the next hole, so you do; while you’re setting up, he asks “So I assume all your quests were about saving innocent people and vanquishing evil?”

“Well, um, some of them.” You’re not comfortable with the idea that the game might have been setting you up as some kind of hero, and setting Dave up as, well, a mini-golf coach. “There were a lot of more casual ones, too, but … they didn’t seem as urgent, I guess? So I didn’t get around to most of them? I mean, I didn’t have anything like…” You trail off as you remember. “Oh no. I really thought that NPC was kidding about the whack-a-mole tournaments!”

“Nah, man, minigames are serious business. You were fated to become the molemaster, and you let us down.”

“We might still have saved the arena! Or wherever you play whack-a-mole exactly.” You’re a little bit flustered, and you flub the shot; your ball starts to fall into a pool of lava, and you only have one more left after this! You panic, and a sudden gust of wind pushes it back onto the course.

“Wow. Lucky shot.” Dave doesn’t wait for a reply, he just moves to start setting up his own shot.

“Heh. Yeah. What were we talking about? Quests! Yeah, I guess I tried to stick to the ones that looked like ‘plot’. Plus the flying quests, because they were totally sweet! It was just like being a superhero! Collecting stuff from midair and doing obstacle courses and … man, I love those quests! Do you know if we can replay the old ones?”

“Dude, that’s not being a superhero, that’s Banjo Kazooie. And I’m constantly disappointed by your lack of gaming know-how here. Everyone knows you do all the sidequests first, as soon as you can, and only do the plot shit when the sidequests dry up. They tried to sell me on saving a village full of crocodiles first thing, and I did the smart thing and told them I’d come back when I’d won every golf game in the land. Seriously, Egbert, get with the program.” He is so smug that, somehow, a gust of wind knocks his ball into the lava.

You don’t even pretend to look innocent. “Gee, Dave, I guess you were so busy bragging that the wind caught it!”

“Gee golly willigosh John, how could that have happened? Oh my poor innocent stars and garters, I know you don’t have any idea. Just one of those things, huh?” The corner of his mouth is turned up, just a tiny bit. He checks the score sheet. “Guess you might be a challenge after all.”

After that it’s no holds barred.

You have to stay away from moving obstacles completely; the gears always speed up just in time to knock your ball away. He doesn’t go anywhere near lava again, which costs him a lot of strokes. As soon as he’s finished a hole, the overhead lights burn out above it, leaving you to play in semi-darkness. When his back is turned the wind pushes his ball around the course. 

You’re both grinning and sweating madly; you’re really *in* to it. You laugh and cheer and cat-call, and Dave chuckles and trash-talks along with you. You haven’t touched the ground in twenty minutes. On hole 17 your second-to-last ball falls apart when your club touches it: the inside is ancient and rotten. He starts to zealously guard the ball he has in play, but he leaves his bag (with his only extra) on the ground, and oops, looks like the wind pushed it into some lava.

At the end of Hole 17 you’re each down to your last ball, your scores are tied, and —

Hole 18 is just a ball return. There’s a lot of iconography and art around it, and you could win a free game if you do it right, but — you tied with Dave. Harrumph.

Well, on the bright side, you _tied_ with someone who apparently spent half of his Sburb session playing minigolf. Ha! That’ll show him.

You proudly show Dave the scorecard, and he snorts once. “Good job, Egbert.” He sounds almost sincere. He puts his ball down at the beginning of the hole, and starts lining up his last shot.

You put your hand on his shoulder and let yourself land. “Hey, Dave? Why don’t we keep the balls? As souvenirs.”

Dave shrugs, but he kneels down and picks up the last red ball. Then he holds it out to you, and — oh! Right! You give him the blue ball, and he drops the red one in your hand.

He really is a romantic.

Dave captchalogues the ball and looks at you appraisingly. “If you want to get some practice, maybe we can have a no-magic rematch sometime. Still, a tie is pretty impressive.”

“I think you could have won if you weren’t too busy staring at me to see where your ball was going!” You were trying to make that light, but you’re blushing pretty fiercely.

Dave rubs his arm with his hand and looks away. His next words are mumbled, and it’s only your attunement to air that allows you to understand them. “I don’t have to pretend not to any more.”

He’s embarrassed, and vulnerable, and beautiful. He’s been pining for you for weeks (months? years?). But now that he can have you, he doesn’t even know what to do. He took you out for a “date”, but has it really been any different than it would have been a week ago?

You want _something_ to be different now. You love your friendship with Dave; everything about this date has been wonderful. It's exactly what you’d want. But it shouldn’t end like this. It can’t end without something more.

You step forward and kiss him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terezi learns a dangerous amount about what's actually going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay. In the past few months, I finished my PhD and got a job I'm very enthusiastic about. Hopefully there won't be any similar delays in the future :)

Maybe they're in a cult.

The four humans have claimed, since you first met them, not to understand romance. Three of the four quadrants are total mysteries to them. Even their view of red romance is warped. They say that they just don't feel black or pale or ashen feelings, that humans never do.

And you could have accepted that. You're mature, you're strong, you're principled. If Dave couldn't ever be pale for you, it would have hurt, but you would have moved on.

But obviously he _can_ be pale for you, because he so clearly, clearly _is_! Dave is pale for you and black for Karkat; John is pale for Karkat; Rose is flushed for Kanaya. That's at least three of the four quadrants that you _know_ humans can manage. Hell, you haven't seen Jade, for all you know maybe she has a promising auspisticeship starting.

At first you assumed your feelings for Dave were one-sided. You thought you must have been imagining things. When it continued, you wondered if maybe humans just thought of their relationships differently. Did they have a different name for it? Or were pale feelings always tied up with flush for them? (And would you want to be in that kind of a moirallegiance, if that was all he could manage?)

But you kept asking little questions, casual questions, things that he knew as well as you were designed to teach you about each other. And it turned out that while there were _some_ similarities between human friendships and parts of a moirallegiance, and others between human romance and pale romance, there were a lot of things that just didn't seem to translate at all. It wasn't that Dave didn't have the right words; it was that he didn't have the right ideas.

But he pities you back.

He holds your hand and he listens to you and if your voice dips into angry, into bitter, he never once flinches, never judges, just moves his warm, soft hand to your elbow and lets you talk, or makes a little joke. He always knows _when_ to let you talk and when to joke, somehow. You've found yourself looking for him when you're angry; you've found yourself looking for him _before_ you're angry. And he's started, just a little bit sometimes, to look for you. When he needs to talk and he doesn't know how.

You _know_ he pities you back.

So he's not incapable of pale romance, but somehow he's never heard of it, under any name.

The best theory you've been able to come up with is that all four humans were abducted at birth by some sort of "romance denial" or "redrom supremacy" cult; information was carefully filtered so that they grew up unaware of the true beauty and splendor of the four quadrants of human romance. If they hadn't played Sgrub, they were presumably fated to be sacrificed in some gruesome fertility ritual at the height of their sexual maturity.

It _would_ explain why they were raised by adults instead of proper lusii.

You are quite aware that this theory is ludicrous. But really, the specifics of what has happened here are secondary. Dave Strider is already your moirail; you just need him to accept it.

You have several ideas, but you want more information first.

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] \--

GC: K4RK4T!  
GC: 1 H4V3NT H34RD FROM YOU  
GC: 1 TRUST YOU F1ND TH3 4RR4NG3M3NT W1TH D4V3 S4T1SF4CTORY  
CG: YEAH, THANKS FOR THE FUCKING WARNING ON THAT, BY THE WAY!  
CG: HEY KARKAT, I THOUGHT THAT AS OUR LEADER, YOU MIGHT NEED TO KNOW THAT STRIDER'S EYE PROBLEM IS SAFELY CONTAINED! ALSO, SINCE I HAVE THE FASHION SENSE OF A SEIZURE-BLINDED DRONE ON HUMAN PAILING DAY, I USED EVERY ONE OF MY NEGATIVE THREE THOUSAND DIFFERENT DIPLOMATIC SKILLS TO MAKE SURE THAT WHATEVER HE'S WEARING IS MAXIMALLY OFFENSIVE!  
CG: JUST A LITTLE 'HEADS UP' TO MAKE SURE YOU DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY!!  
GC: 1M NOT SUR3 TH4T HUM4N G3N3T1C FLU1DS 4CTU4LLY M4TCH TH31R   
GC: N3V3R M1ND  
CG: AHA! AND HOW WOULD YOU KNOW WHAT HUMAN GENETIC FLUIDS LOOK LIKE??  
GC: K4RK4T 1T 1S P3RF3CTLY N4TUR4L FOR 4 CUR1OUS YOUNG TROLL TO GO 3XPLOR1NG TH3 HUM4N 1NT3RN3T FOR F1LTHY HUM4N PORNOGR4PHY  
GC: YOU DONT N33D TO PR3T3ND YOU H4V3NT  
CG: YOU CAUGHT ME! I HAVE DEFINITELY HAD TIME FOR THAT.  
CG: THERE CERTAINLY ISN'T ANYTHING ELSE I NEED TO BE DOING!  
GC: TH3R3 K1ND OF 1SNT THOUGH  
GC: 4T L34ST TH3R3 W4SNT UNT1L SOLLUX 4ND 4R4D14 4ND ROS3 F1N1SH3D  
CG: SIGH  
CG: YEAH  
CG: FRANKLY THEIR PORNOGRAPHY HAS BEEN REALLY DISAPPOINTING, THOUGH.  
CG: THE CLOSEST THING TO A DECENT ASHEN SCENE IS TEASING WITH NO CONSUMMATION, THE PALE STUFF IS EITHER WIGGLERS OR TERRIFYING TALKING ANIMALS WHO *ACT* LIKE WIGGLERS, AND EVERY CALIGINOUS PIECE I'VE SEEN IS BLATANTLY ABUSIVE.  
GC: DO YOU TH1NK TH3 V3RS1ON OF TH3 HUM4N 1NT3RN3T W3 H4V3 4CC3SS TO M1GHT B3...F1LT3R3D?  
CG: FILTERED? I THINK WE HAVE ACCESS TO EVERYTHING THEY DID.  
CG: AT LEAST, NONE OF THE HUMANS HAVE MENTIONED ANYTHING MISSING.  
GC: 3X4CTLY! 3V3RYTH1NG TH3Y H4D  
GC: 4ND NOTH1NG TH3Y D1DNT  
CG: ???  
GC: DONT YOU TH1NK 1TS SUSP1C1OUS, K4RK4T?  
GC: TH3Y CL41M TO ONLY H4V3 ON3 QU4DR4NT OF ROM4NC3 4ND TH31R 1NT3RN3T SUPPORTS TH4T  
GC: BUT TH3Y DO H4V3 QU4DR4NTS, DONT TH3Y?  
GC: YOU DONT S33M TO B3 H4V1NG 4NY TROUBL3!  
CG: WILL YOU LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE ABOUT STRIDER?! I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR OBSESSION WITH MY OBSESSION WITH HIM!  
CG: MY IMAGINARY OBSESSION THAT I DON'T EVEN HAVE! AND YOUR VERY REAL OBSESSION WITH ....  
CG: YOU MEANT JOHN, DIDN'T YOU?  
GC: W3 C4N T4LK 4BOUT WHO3V3R YOUD L1K3 K4RK4T!  
GC: BUT NOW TH4T YOU M3NT1ON JOHN  
GC: 1 H4V3 B33N SUSP1C1OUS FOR QU1T3 SOM3 T1M3  
GC: 1F JOHN B3L13V3D H3 WOULDNT B3 C4P4BL3 OF P4L3 ROM4NC3  
GC: HOW D1D YOU CONV1NC3 H1M TO GO OUT W1TH YOU?  
CG: GOD, REALLY?  
CG: I GUESS YOUR CARTILIGINOUS NUB IS THE ONLY APPENDAGE ON THIS METEOR THAT HASN'T ALREADY SNIFFED ITS WAY INTO THE DEEPEST RECESSES OF EVERY TWIST AND TURN OF OUR RELATIONSHIP. AND DON'T THINK I'M NOT SUSPICIOUS ENOUGH ABOUT THAT!  
CG: I WAGED A SEDUCTION CAMPAIGN UNMATCHED IN STORY OR SONG. I CUDDLED, I POUTED, I LISTENED, AND I RAGED! I WAS PITIABLE AND FEARSOME IN TURNS.  
CG: I CHOSE MOVIES CAREFULLY, WEARING DOWN HIS CULTURAL RESISTANCE WHILE EDUCATING HIM ON THE GREATEST PALE STORIES OUR CULTURE HAS PRODUCED.  
CG: I CARVED HIS NAME INTO THE MOST SECRET AND DELICATE PLACES OF MY FLESH; I SNUCK INTO HIS RESPITEBLOCK AT NIGHT AND WHISPERED PROMISES OF ANGER INTO HIS DREAMS.  
CG: AND WHEN HE CRIED OUT IN HIS SLEEP, QUAKING IN HIS ABSURD HUMAN SEX PLATFORM, I HELD HIS HAND, AND SHOOSHED HIM.  
CG: I WHISPERED SWEET NOTHINGS INTO HIS HEAR DUCTS UNTIL HIS THINKSPONGE LIQUIFIED AND DRIBBLED ONTO HIS PILLOW, AND THE GORY REMAINS OF WHAT WAS ONCE JOHN EGBERT'S THOUGHTS PUDDLED INTO THE SHAPE OF A DIAMOND, HALOING HIS TRANQUILLY SLEEPING HEAD.  
CG: AND THEN WHEN HE DIDN'T NOTICE ANY OF THAT, BECAUSE AS MUCH AS I LIKE HIM LET'S BE HONEST, IT'S FIFTY-FIFTY ON A GOOD DAY WHETHER HE'D NOTICE IF WE GOT HUMAN MARRIED,  
CG: I TROLLED UP AND ASKED HIM.  
CG: AND HE SAID YES.  
GC: R333444LLLY  
GC: H3 TOLD YOU H3 COULDNT POSS1BLY B3 1N 4 P4L3 ROM4NC3, TH4T H3 W4S PHYS1C4LLY 4ND M3NT4LLY 1NC4P4BL3 OF 1T  
GC: 4ND TH3N YOU S41D, BUT W1LL YOU D4T3 M3 4NYW4Y?  
GC: 4ND H3 S41D Y3S  
GC: YOU UND3RST4ND HOW TH4T COULD S33M 4 L1TTL3 ODD, R1GHT?  
CG: OKAY SO MAYBE I LEFT OUT SOME OF THE MIDDLE!  
CG: BECAUSE, GUESS WHAT? IT'S NOT ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS EVEN A LITTLE BIT!  
CG: WHY THE HELL ARE YOU SO ....  
CG: OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD, YOU'RE BLACK FOR JOHN.  
GC: K4RK4T 1M NOT BL4CK FOR JOHN  
CG: YOU'RE BLACK FOR JOHN EGBERT! OH MAN, OH MAN, THIS IS HILARIOUS.  
CG: IS IT REAL, TEREZI? HAS HE CHARRED YOUR BLOODPUSHER INTO A CRISPY BURNT HUSK? DO YOU THINK HE MIGHT HATE YOU BACK? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  
CG: OKAY, HE'S GOING TO KILL ME FOR RUINING WHAT I'M SURE HE THINKS IS A GRADE-A 'PRANK', BUT WITH ALL OF THE OTHER EXCREMENT TORNADOS PUSHING SHIT INTO EVERYONE'S SKULLPLATES HERE, I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU THIS ONE FOR FREE.  
CG: HE DOESN'T HATE YOU. HE THOUGHT YOU WERE ROLEPLAYING.  
GC: J3GUS FUCK 1M NOT BL4CK FOR JOHN!  
CG: ACTUALLY, DO YOU THINK MAYBE YOU COULD NOT TELL HIM I TOLD YOU?  
CG: HE HAS A LOT OF TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING AUSPISTICISM, AND WHAT HAPPENED HERE IS CLEARLY SOMETHING THAT TWO MATURE TROLL ADULTS RECOGNIZE AS A *PLATONICALLY* ASHEN INTERACTION.  
CG: OR AT WORST MAYBE AS THE KIND OF VERY LIGHT QUADRANT-BLURRING THAT HAPPENS IN ANY REAL RELATIONSHIP! SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO GENTLY NUDGE YOUR MOIRAIL AWAY FROM A RELATIONSHIP YOU KNOW WOULD BE UNHEALTHY FOR THEM, THE SAME WAY THAT SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR MATESPRIT'S PROBLEMS, JUST A BIT, AND THAT'S NORMAL AND HEALTHY!  
CG: I AM *NOT* ASHEN FOR MY MOIRAIL, I FEEL NAUSEOUS JUST THINKING ABOUT IT.  
CG: THE IDEA OF STANDING BETWEEN HIM AND ANYONE, INCLUDING YOU, IS INCREDIBLY TERRIBLE AND PERVERTED! I'M ON HIS SIDE, BY DEFINITION. TRYING TO PRETEND THAT I COULD RIP MYSELF AWAY FROM HIM TO BE ASHEN FOR THE TWO OF YOU IS...WELL, INCREDIBLY DISGUSTING.  
GC: K4RK4T, G3T TH1S 1NTO YOUR BR41N  
GC: 1   
GC: 4M NOT BL4CK   
GC: FOR JOHN 3GB3RT  
GC: 1 H4V3 N3V3R B33N BL4CK FOR JOHN 3GB3RT  
GC: 1 H4V3 T4LK3D W1TH H1M M4YB3 FOUR T1M3S 3V3R!  
GC: 4ND H3 S33MS P3RF3CTLY N1C3 1F 4 L1TTL3 DULL  
CG: THAT'S HOW HE GETS YOU, THOUGH, HE ...  
CG: OKAY, JOHN'S PRANKING ASIDE, IF YOU'RE NOT BLACK FOR HIM, THEN --  
CG: STRIDER.  
GC: NOP3! 1 4M NOT BL4CK FOR D4V3 31TH3R  
GC: K4RK4T S1NC3 YOU 4R3 H4V1NG SO MUCH TROUBL3, 1LL JUST G1V3 1T TO YOU  
GC: 1 4M 4SH3N FOR ROS3 4ND 3R1D4N  
CG: OKAY, I'M NOT SAYING THAT WOULDN'T MAKE SENSE, WITH AS DISGUSTINGLY DYSFUNCTIONAL AS ERIDAN'S ATTEMPTS AT "WOOING" ROSE ARE.  
CG: SERIOUSLY, WHAT IS HIS PROBLEM? SHE DOESN'T HATE YOU BACK, MORON!  
CG: NOT THAT SHE ISN'T JUST AS BAD! SHE SEEMS TO THINK IT'S FUNNY TO DO THE VERBAL EQUIVALENT OF KNEEING HIM IN THE SHAME GLOBES EVERY TIME HE BOTHERS TO SPEAK.  
CG: THEN SHE JOTS DOWN SOME "NOTES" IN HER "TROLL PSYCHOLOGY" NOTEBOOK ABOUT HOW HARD ERIDAN JUST GOT OWNED.  
CG: I DON'T THINK SHE TAKES BLACK ROMANCE SERIOUSLY, YOU KNOW? IT'S ALL ACADEMIC FOR HER.   
CG: AND IF SHE'S NOT CAREFUL, SHE'S GOING TO LEARN FAST THAT ERIDAN ISN'T FUCKING AROUND.  
GC: HOLY SH1T 1 W4S K1DD1NG  
CG: ALL I'M SAYING IS, I CAN SEE HOW A REASONABLE TROLL COULD FIND THEM ATTRACTIVE!  
GC: YOU H4V3 4 CRUSH ON ROS3 4ND 3R1D4N?  
GC: K4RK4T, K4RK4T, SW33T K4RK4T  
GC: 1 HOP3 YOU DON'T TH1NK 1'V3 FORGOTT3N TH3 HOMOC1D3 P4CT W3 SWOR3 1F 31TH3R OF US 3V3R F1LL3D 4 QU4DR4NT W1TH 3R1D4N 4MPOR4  
CG: *YOU* SWORE A HOMICIDE PACT! I WAS CLEARLY UNDER DURESS.  
CG: ANYWAY, OBVIOUSLY WHEN I SAID "STRIDER", I DIDN'T MEAN BLACK.  
CG: YOU ARE, SOMEHOW, PALE FOR HIM.  
CG: BLECCH.  
GC: MY F33L1NGS 4R3 NOT TH3 1SSU3  
GC: TH3 QU3ST1ON YOU N33D TO 4NSW3R 1S  
GC: HOW D1D YOU G3T 4 P4L3 R3L4T1ONSH1P TO WORK W1TH 4 HUM4N?  
CG: WE DID NORMAL MOIRAIL STUFF!  
CG: THAT'S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS ANYWAY!!  
GC: 1M D1S4PPO1NT3D K4RK4T  
GC: YOU C4NT B3L13V3 1M GO1NG TO B3 S4T1SF13D W1TH TH4T  
GC: 1 KNOW TH3R3 1S SOM3TH1NG GO1NG ON H3R3  
GC: 4ND TRUST M3  
GC: 1 W1LL F1ND OUT WH4T

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] \--

 

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling gardenGnostic [GG] \--

GC: J4D3! TH3 COURT H4S JUST 4 F3W QU3ST1ONS FOR YOU!  
GC: YOU H4V3 FROM W1TN3SS 4CCOUNTS P4RT1C1P4T3D 1N S3V3R4L QU4DR4NT-PR3P4R4TORY R3L4T1ONSH1PS OR BY TH3 HUM4N T3RM "D4T3S"  
GC: W1TH 4 V4R13TY OF TROLLS 4ND 1N 4 V4R13TY OF QU4DR4NTS  
GC: (4ND CONGR4TUL4T1ONS ON TH4T BY TH3 W4Y)  
GG: thanks! :D  
GC: BUT YOUR SP3C13S 1S ON R3CORD 4S NOT B31NG C4P4BL3 OF TH3 3MOT1ONS N3C3SS4RY FOR THR33 OF TH3 FOUR QU4DR4NTS  
GC: TH3 COURT D3M4NDS 4 D3T41L3D 3XPL4N4T1ON!  
GG: oh wow!! does this mean that you and dave are finally getting somewhere? :)  
GG: so you need the captchalogue code? not a problem!

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] has sent file pap.txt to user gallowsCalibrator [GC] \--

GG: youll want to use about a teaspoon maybe a little more if its a serious pile  
GG: oh thats a human measurement huh? well, the jar should last you maybe 50 applications  
GG: i wouldnt trust dave to know what a teaspoon is but i can show you sometime if you want  
GG: and be careful not to get any on his skin, your natural oils will do the job for him  
GG: maybe you could experiment with that later but frankly for a human, well, the normal effect is pretty strong!  
GG: you can apply it yourself before you start but really id recommend you have him do it with a good pair of gloves  
GC: WH4T  
GC: J4D3 WH4T 1S TH1S TH3 COD3 FOR?  
GG: i think eridan said the troll name was skin-soluble self papping assistance cream?  
GC: ...  
GG: its got all of those skin oils and pheromones and things you guys need for ...  
GG: you and dave *are* pale, right? shit, i just assumed, and ... if you need another quadrant that is totally cool!  
GC: M4YB3 4S 4 HUM4N YOU DON'T UND3RST4ND HOW SC4ND4LOUS D4NG3ROUS 4ND MUCH MOR3 1MPORT4NTLY 1LL3G4L TH1S 1S  
GC: S3LF P4PP1NG 4SS1ST4NC3 CR34M 1S H1GHLY 4DD1CT1V3   
GC: 4ND THR34T3NS TH3 STRUCTUR3 OF CONC1L14TORY R3L4T1ONSH1PS WH1CH 3N4BL3S TROLL SOC13TY TO FUNCT1ON  
GC: 4CT1NG 4S YOUR OWN "MO1R41L" 1N SOM3 P3RV3RT3D .... S3LF P4PP1NG .... UGGGH  
GC: WH3R3 D1D 3R1D4N 3V3N ....  
GC: ...  
GG: ...  
GC: ...  
GC: H3 1S LUCKY TH3 WORLD 3ND3D  
GG: look maybe this isnt how things worked on alternia! but we dont make the skin oil things  
GG: if you and dave are going to be in a relationship you need to be realistic with each other   
GC: J4D3 3V3N TH3 C4PTCH4LOGU3 COD3 FOR TH1S SM3LLS STRONG  
GC: ...  
GC: 4ND F4M1L14R  
GG: familiar?  
GC: NO  
GC: K4RK4T WOULDNT  
GC: H3S NOT   
GC: 4ND TH3N H3 THR34T3NS D4V3????  
GC: 4S 1F 4NYTH1NG D4V3 COULD DO WOULD   
GC: ...  
GC: TH3 COURT TH4NKS YOU FOR YOUR 4SS1ST4NC3 G3NTL3TROLL  
GC: YOU H4V3 B33N MOST H3LPFUL

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling gardenGnostic [GG] \--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My automated pesterlog formatter is at https://googledrive.com/host/0B1_54PMWUvHWa1dyX2RqSlltR28/helloworld.html , please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions, or if you find it helpful.


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